To Better a Life
by bookwormFFW
Summary: Derek Vinyard went from a fatherless skinhead to a brotherless... something else in the time it takes to fall asleep. His family has become a source a guilt; his dreams nightmares, and now it's time to wake up.
1. Just a Boy Without a Brother

To Better a Life

Just a Boy Without a Brother

Author's Note: I half don't expect anyone to actually read this since there's only two other stories in this category, but hey, I gotta try, right? This has been nagging at me since I watched this movie for the tenth time a few nights ago, so I wrote it down. It's obviously unfinished, for my brain has many things in store for Derek Vinyard, but any updating I'll be doing will be random at best. I'd go into detail, but the only thing you truly need to know is that I'm a very busy young woman. This little chunk isn't really a first chapter. It's more of an introduction, but I feel it would seem overworked if I added anything else. Please note that any derogatory or offensive language is the view of the portrayed characters and not my own. Please read, review, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not have or claim rights to any of the characters or plots portrayed in this entire piece (meaning in this and in future chapters) that were also portrayed in the film, _American History X_.

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

–Abraham Lincoln

These are the last words my brother would ever put on paper; his talent for the written word buried beneath the burden of rewriting a history paper after pissing off one of Doris's old boyfriends. The irony—the paper was prompted after me, the former skinhead and all around fuck up of the family. These were also the last words the funeral director spewed into the microphone at Danny's funeral right after he babbled for an hour about how the 'poor young man' never got to see the age of adulthood.

What an ignorant bastard. If the man had ever met my brother he'd have known the opposite was true. Mostly thanks to me, with some credit to the nigger who shot our father, Danny never had the chance to finish being a child. Tailing me to the pointless grocery store raids and other bullshit I filled my time with a little over three years ago, Danny was more than exposed to the ways of the D.O.C. The tattoo, which I had nearly thrown up upon seeing, that hid beneath Danny's shirt sleeve supports my argument. I couldn't even begin to imagine the scars Danny carried after watching his older brother curb-stomp a man.

So while the rest of the congregation was suppressing tears while Sir. Ignorant expressed his regret that Daniel Vinyard had never made it to 18, I was trying my best not to march up there and illustrate the definition of sin; however, with my obvious aversion to returning to Chino, I resisted.

It's been two weeks since the funeral. I've mostly spent it on the streets. Though dangerous since the D.O.C. and the majority of the minority alike were gunning for me, being in the apartment was worse. My mom tells me over and over… and over that she doesn't blame me for the shooting. She doesn't have to. We all know the truth even though none of us have the guts to say it aloud. That gang kid didn't shoot Danny because of a confrontation in the school bathroom as the newspapers like to tell it—Danny died because he shared my name, my blood, my anger, my hatred. His death was my fault. Doris might insist that she doesn't blame me for any of it, but she still won't look me in the eyes.

Davina has taken up responsibility for Ally since Doris has taken up two packs a day and a nearly constant cough. How my younger sister balances school, a five year old girl, and the insomnia we all seem to have acquired, I don't know; I usually don't stick around the apartment long enough to find out. Call me scared if you want. You can even call me an insensitive zealot skinhead. Call me grieving, call me psychotic, call me scarred, or call me a nigger—I couldn't tell you which is true anymore.


	2. Recognition and the Bee

Recognition and the Bee

Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews! I wasn't expecting one, and I got two! So exciting! Okay, so again, any updates will still be random and far apart because school is busier than a bee right now, but I hope you, my current readers, will not be discouraged from continuing to read anyway. Please enjoy this chapter. It made me and my sister laugh, so hopefully that's a good sign. Please continue to review. I love feedback and, of course, praise.

"Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway."

-Mary Kay Ash

'Derek' is a generally common name, but if you paste 'Vinyard' to the back it suddenly becomes the catalyst for many open mouths, glares, or in the worst case scenario, gangsters of many colors shooting their guns. Though that last one hasn't happened, it will if my day ends how it started. I've already been to see Hector, my obese parole officer who has a seriously ugly toupee and to see if I could get my old job back. Hector told me, for the thirtieth time in the last three weeks, not to retaliate against Danny's shooting (it has been two weeks since the funeral and three weeks since the shooting) and my old boss told me to get lost. The latter has been a whole hell of a lot easier.

I wish I could get lost on an extremely high bluff and 'accidentally' fall off. That would be a lot easier than suppressing my want for revenge, a reprisal that needs to be suppressed for the sake of my family. The last thing Doris needs right now is for her eldest son to go to prison for killing a gun happy Negro… again. That's where I stand currently, tensing every time a Trans-Am drives past me on the street—ready for the fight that I know I can't start. (I _will_ finish it if the other side moves first.)

A car horn blaring at me, standing stupidly in the middle of a crosswalk, got me moving again. I was on my way to a small burger place that Hector had recommended for a potential job. It was right next to Mar Vista, so I was less likely to find any D.O.C. hanging around. I felt awkward walking around the street wearing dress pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie. I pulled my shirt out of its square tuck and tore the tie off, stuffing it into my pocket before opening the door to my 'hopefully' new work place. Cross your fingers.

x X x

I've been running into this problem since I got out of Chino. Every time I introduced myself to someone who lived in or near Venice Beach, eight times out of ten, they'd either take their outstretched hand back before I could shake it, stop smiling and shake my hand with obvious reluctance, call me 'Father Vinyard' and ask me, "What the hell was all the bullshit you pulled at Cameron's about?," or throw insults and Nazi salutes at me until I walked away. (I'm probably lucky I haven't been jumped yet.)

I liked to call the face that every single person made the 'recognition.' It's that face right before they can either hide it or intensify it, that face that says, "Oh shit, I read/heard/know about this motherfucker!" My potential employer was now making that face as he continued to shake my hand as he had been for the past minute and a half while starring at me with wide, brown eyes.

Three years ago Jimmy Gustavo would have had need to be a little bit skeptical of Derek Vinyard paying his establishment a visit. He's Latino. I wanted to say something and break the apparent tension, but what do you say to someone who obviously knows you were _the_ skinhead of Venice Beach? _You know, I made friends with this black guy, Lamont, in prison and was jumped in the shower by my Aryan Brotherhood 'friends,' so you can stop shaking my hand now_…. That rolls off the tongue all right….

I ended up settling for clearing my throat. His neck reddened slightly and he pulled at his collar as he released my now sweating hand. I wiped my palm on my pants and tried to smile. This was worse than getting rejected by a man I'd worked for, for years. At least he had been one of the two out of ten who had seemed mildly happy to see me out of prison.

Mr. Gustavo looked over my application I'd filled out on the way over and my pathetic resume. I was probably lucky Hector had even gotten me this interview in the first place. That resume didn't have much on it. "Mr. Vinyard, can I ask what you were incarcerated for?" he asked me in a voice with absolutely no trace of any sort of accent. I kicked myself for being surprised by that.

Oh no. Of all the questions to ask me, the man had to choose that one! I shifted in my seat and fidgeted with my shirt cuffs. I looked at the wall behind Mr. Gustavo's head when I answered him. "Voluntary Manslaughter." I looked Gustavo in the eyes and didn't see what I thought I would after using the words 'man' and slaughter' simultaneously.

x X x

Jimmy Gustavo gave me a job. I was the new dishwasher/Mr. fix it for Jimmy's Burgers. After my reluctant confession and explanation on how I'd landed in Chino, my new boss had patted me on the shoulder and told me he'd keep me busy in back during my shifts so the unforgiving of the customers wouldn't mount my head on a stake and put it on the roof of the restaurant. I wanted to hug the man! Wrap my arms around him and kiss him on the cheek. I didn't deserve this job. I didn't deserve this Latino boss, the most compassionate person I'd ever met.

I was actually excited to start work the next morning. I was too excited apparently: I ran over a young woman on my way out of the restaurant. We collided with enough force that the books she'd been carrying were thrown onto the overgrown sidewalk, and she was nearly thrown backwards into the street. Instinctively, I grabbed her hand and pulled her back up before she tumbled in front of a passing car. "I'm sorry!" I rushed to spit out while bending down to pick up her books. I was too flustered at that point to realize how incredibly cliché the whole encounter had been.

Standing again, I handed her books back, which were textbooks judging by their size. She chuckled and took them, slipping them neatly under her arm. "It's alright," she said in a small voice. It took me off guard. After years of listening to Stacey's coarse voice, hearing this girl speak was different… and strangely nice.

We both stood there for a moment. She was starring at me. I looked away already expecting the 'recognition' to come rearing its ugly head, but when I looked back, her black eyes were only openly curious. I realized with more relief than I would have expected that she didn't know me. I let myself stare back as she didn't move to release her gaze. The woman was young, no older than twenty-one or two, and she had hair the color of a raven that hugged her light-olive shoulders. Her features were striking and sharp except for a small round nose and small, soft lips.

The girl giggled again. "You're starring sir," she accused, her cheeks growing rosy.

"So are you."


	3. A Man of Many Men

A Man of Many Men

Author's Note: Hello everyone! I can actually say that because I know at least two people are actually reading this! Whoop! Anyway, thanks again for the reviews! I always appreciate them. There's nothing in the world that could encourage me more to continue this than continued reviews. (hint, hint) You'll notice that this chapter has two POV's. Please don't be alarmed by that! The majority of the story will be in Derek's POV. Just notice the italicized names when it switches back and forth. Also, sorry if this chapter was still pretty short. The perfect cliffhanger landed on my football field, so I had to tackle it. Please continue to enjoy, and don't forget to review when you're done reading.

"For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night."

-William Shakespeare

Good old Dr. Bob Sweeney. Just when he's the last person you really want to come home to, he's seated on your living room couch, hands folded in his lap, and an all-knowing yet pitying look pasted on his face. I slammed the door as I entered the apartment probably more as a result of Sweeney's companion than Sweeney. Danny's old teacher and Doris's failed attempt at renouncing her identity as a widow, Fredrick Murray, was sitting next to Sweeney. In _my_ family's apartment. On _my_ couch. Does it make me a white supremacist to find that irritating?

"Hello Derek." The greeting was pleasant enough, but Murray wasn't doing anything to disguise his discomfort. I can't say I could blame him. The last time the man and I were in the same room at the same time, an argument about Rodney King lead to me suffocating Davina with dinner, shoving Danny to the floor, flicking my mother away from me like a fly, threatening to cut Murray's 'Shylock nose off' and stick it up his ass, and, my favorite part, flashing the swastika permanently inked over my heart to the Jewish man and proclaiming that he was 'not welcome.' My feelings towards my behavior pre-Chino didn't distort my dislike for Murray. That much hadn't changed.

Not much else had changed either…. The dinner table and Danny were missing, but the rest of the family was also seated in the living room, and the tension was building the longer I stood there. I looked at Davina, but she was pretending to be interested in Ally's one legged bear as the younger girl tried to settle onto Davina's lap. "What is this, an intervention?" I commented, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. Even I heard the agitation in my tone.

I turned my back to them and walked into the adjoining kitchen for a much needed glass of something. I settled for water as Sweeney took charge as I knew he would. "Derek, come and sit down," Sweeney instructed. Just to spite him, I moved back into the living room but continued to stand resting my weight lightly on the kitchen table. I raised my eyebrows as a pointed introduction for someone to explain what the hell was going on and downed the glass of water in one shot. No one spoke as I brought the glass back down, tapping it against the table in a simple beat.

"Well, what. Don't keep me in suspense," I finally shouted. (Have we been here before?) Doris jumped and surprised me by offering an explanation before Sweeney did.

"The four of us have been talking, Derek, and—" a coughing fit cut her off. She took a minute, sipping at her own glass of ice water, and tried again. "We've been talking, and we've decided that some changes would be best for all of us." She paused again. Coughed again. Sipped again. "Even Ally can sense that you don't like to be here." Doris paused, but I didn't move to deny it. I'm no liar.

She glanced at Murray, and the intimacy in the single look made my skin crawl. What the fuck was this?

Murray decided to join the conversation. "Derek, Doris and Ally are going to move in with me, and Davina has arrangements to move in with a few friends from school." Murray said it all very quickly in a voice too confident to appease the rocks dropping one by one into my gut. "You're welcome to stay in the apartment but would probably be more comfortable in a smaller place."

The rocks melted all at once, and blood hotter than magma rose on my neck. I wanted to yell. No, I wanted to wring the neck of the man trying to double as my father! Trying to steal my family away from me, again! What happened to my plans, our plans? Moving out together, finding a house big enough to accommodate us all. Return things back to the way they were. But that plan was ruined, and I knew it as clearly as they did. Danny was a part of that plan… and Danny was dead.

I didn't yell. I didn't even look at Murray as I hurled the glass at the wall behind me. I didn't watch as the thing shattered into a billion pieces. I didn't offer to clean up the mess as I stalked towards mine and Danny's r—my room. My heart, my mind, and my veil of self control were shattering. No one was offering to pick _me_ up.

x X x

I could hear their voices when I stepped out of the shower. No one had tried to so much as explain themselves since I'd left the living room, though I did hear Davina complain over the broken glass. That was probably for the better anyway. Since the shooting, the shower, ironically, had become the only place I could express any sort of emotion in peace. Even in a picture it would be impossible to prove I'd been crying.

Unfortunately, that wasn't my first instinct at that moment. I wanted to do anything but cry: shout, curse, rip the showerhead off the wall and hit Murray over the head with it.

I looked at myself in the mirror, something I'd been doing frequently. I half expected the Hulk to be starring back at me with the rage I felt. I couldn't even understand why I was so angry. Wasn't I past this? No. The anger didn't disappear because the racism in my heart faded. A jackass is still a jackass whether you dislike the load it carries or the fact that it kicked you in the shin.

The Hulk didn't look back at me. Derek Vinyard, white supremacist, zealot skinhead, convicted killer did. His hair pleaded to be shaved off. His tattoos taunted me. His swastika, the joy of his pride, pulsed at me through the reflection, beating to the rhythm of my heart. Derek Vinyard, dedicated student, dedicated brother, dedicated son was starring at me too, his fingers itching to scratch the damn thing off.

x X x

The sun was setting when I left the apartment. I didn't say goodbye. I regretted not saying goodbye. I still didn't go back to say it. I wandered the streets, one duffle bag in hand and one on my back. I was surprised it took two of them to carry away my small possessions. The sun was starting to set, and I knew without checking a clock that I was late.

x X x

Bags stowed safely in Jimmy Gustavo's office, I rounded the corner where the coffee shop was located feeling feather light. The rocks in my stomach were still shaking, but just being out of the apartment made my fists soften slightly. Part of me hadn't even meant to walk in that direction, but ten minutes after securing a safe hiding place for what little I owned, I found myself in front of the designated meeting place. I peaked in the window before going inside. Beni sat in the far corner of the café, scribbling furiously in her notebook. Her raven hair was pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, secured by three pencils.

Beni, the young, Asian woman I'd nearly thrown into traffic earlier that day, didn't seem to notice me. I reached for the door handle, but stopped just as my fingertips touched it. This was stupid. I couldn't get involved with anyone, least of all someone I'd only met once and reluctantly agreed to have coffee with. No, this was pointless. The only thing meeting up with a nice girl like Beni would result in was pain, and not pain for me. Besides, I don't like coffee.

x X x

_Beni_

I watched as Derek Vinyard walked away from the coffee shop. You'd think that when standing a girl up, the man would at least avoid the date location. I shrugged to myself, pulling a pencil from my hair and chewing on it habitually. He wanted to play hard ball. That was fine with me. I knew where he worked.

x X x

_Derek_

The boardwalk was unsurprisingly alive with people despite the late hour. I walked through it trying to look ghostlike. I felt like a ghost. Like no one could see me. Alone. I felt alone. No Beni, no Doris, no Davina, no Ally, no Danny. Just 'D' Vinyard and 'Father' Vinyard striding towards the basketball courts with no conscious knowledge of having made the decision to play. I stopped a few yards shy of the courts and watched. There was already a game being played, Black guys against Black guys. The D.O.C. had obviously lost control of them since their only good basketball player went to prison. I hope Cameron took that hard.

One of the guys on the courts and I made eye contact just then. He nudged the man standing next to him and gestured my way. I smiled. I couldn't help it. It was funny. I'd been avoiding elongated stays at the apartment for weeks now, and neither side had noticed me walking the streets. When I have no apartment to run to, I caught their eye. Is that irony again, or just bad luck?

I turned and walked in the other direction. I knew they would follow me and wait until I walked down a darkened alley or some shit like that. I was having a hard time caring. I continued to walk, my pace increasingly slow, waiting for a bullet to pierce my skin.


	4. What a Name Can Say

What a Name Can Say

Author's Note: 'We're having macaroni tonight! That means garlic bread! _**YES!'**_ Don't be dishonest, I know that 'yes' was what at least one of you were thinking when you saw that little notice in your inbox. (And if you can tell me what movie that quote is from, I'll… kiss you?) I couldn't be happier with the notice this story has taken. It currently has two reviews per chapter, which is consistent at least. I'm so excited! Anyway, thanks again to those that reviewed. I'd love it if I could break my '2' record, but beggars can't be choosers. (Does that make me a beggar?) I hope you all enjoy this next episode of 'Derek Vinyard: Where is He Now?' (Cue dramatic music.) Review, enjoy, read… if not in that order!

P.S. If you ever notice any typos or (heaven forbid it!) grammatical errors that you are absolutely certain of, please include that in the reviews, but by all means, you don't have to go through the whole chapter looking for them. Thanks. Read it! Love it! Kiss it! Wait….

"A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."

- Samuel Johnson

Chills that had nothing to do with the implausibly cold water that streamed from the showerheads did laps up and down my spine as a damp towel was wrapped around my neck. Hot breath touched the back of my head as the man behind me spoke threateningly into my ear. I'd known what was coming, my entire body stiffening and my mouth choking out a defiant 'fuck you.'

I realized slowly with dark stars circling in and out of my vision that my head wasn't about to be slammed into a tile wall; it was about to be crushed, again, into a brick one. I tensed a moment before the collision. More black splotches erupted behind my eyes and my head split with pain. Momentarily let go of, I stumbled. I clutched at the wall to right myself and noticed that my attackers were fewer than I had expected. Two men stood behind me, both muttering something about getting what I deserved 'murdering skinhead' and one of them with a boot swinging towards my face. Son of a bitch. Hit me once, shame on your nigger ass; hit me twice, shame on mine.

I caught the ankle of the assailing foot and pulled with all my strength. The man's weight did the rest and he landed with a grunt on his back. His buddy, apparently deciding not to be a wall flower in the situation and looking royally pissed that his comrade's 'surprise tackle' hadn't made me an easier target, advanced. He hesitated; I swung first catching his temple with a squared fist. Then I did the first sensible thing I'd done that night—I ran for it. For the record, I wasn't afraid of a couple of spooks with attitude; I was scared that more might have been arriving soon.

x X x

I didn't get more than three blocks before a police car flagged me down. He pulled up beside me and rolled the window down. "You okay, son?" he asked loudly over the roar of the car engine. I must have looked confused as to why he was asking me that (when I was really just irritated by the 'son' endearment) because then he told me I was bleeding from the head. I reached a hand up and felt around just beneath my hairline. When I brought my hand back down the tips of my fingers were sticky with fresh blood.

The cop's voice brought me out of my surprise. "Have you been drinking tonight?" he asked while shining an overly bright flashlight into my eyes. I told him I had. Of course, I hadn't had so much as a beer, but it was probably easier to believe I'd 'fallen' into a wall if I had been partially intoxicated. He removed the flashlight from my eyes and stepped out of his cruiser.

I rubbed my temples and tried to focus on him through the holes he'd burned in my retinas. "Can I give you a ride to the hospital? Get that cleaned up?" he asked gesturing to my head. I nodded. Where else was I going to go? My duffle bags might be able to sleep in Jimmy's Gustavo's office, but I certainly wasn't planning on it.

I got into the passenger seat of the cruiser. I had to stop myself from laughing at the whole situation. It felt like an ironic dream. So far, officer whoever hadn't shown me the 'recognition' nor did I recognize him. That made it a whole hell of a lot easier to lie when he asked me for my name. I decided Hector and the judge didn't need to know about my little fight and throw my ass back in Chino, so I gave him the first name that popped into my head. "Daniel Dennis." Okay, so I probably could have picked a name easier on my heart, but it was late, my head hurt like a motherfucker, and the cop seemed to buy it.

x X x

I learned two things that night/early morning: officer whoever had a good set of instincts and didn't trust my 'intoxicated stumble' story, and there were just as many people in a hospital emergency room at one in the morning as there were at one in the afternoon. I was more than relieved to get away from the stiff chairs and shrieking infants (twins with ear infections) of the waiting room and into the semi-privacy of a bed on wheels separated from the other ones by overly bright green curtains. I sat on the bed with a hospital provided towel pressed onto my head and kicked my legs anxiously. I probably looked like a bored child—I _was_ bored.

A nurse walked into my curtained area (can't really call it a room) holding a chart with a piece of paper I'd filled out lazily in the waiting room clipped to it. She looked up at me and flashed a white, if not cricked, smile. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes and her blond hair was fizzy and trying desperately to escape a ponytail. Despite her haggard appearance she seemed awake and cheery. I wondered dully if she was annoyingly like that all the time or if her job required it. "Hello Mr. Dennis, I'm—." Dennis. Dad. Shot. Dead. Pain that had nothing to do with the blood trickling down the side of my face. I definitely could have chosen a better 'nom de plume.'

Nurse whoever, I hadn't caught her name, was now talking with officer untrusting who I'd just then noticed had tailed me into the emergency room. I didn't pay attention to what they were saying. They were starting to sound like they were under water. Though nurse whoever and officer untrusting would probably attribute my lack of responsiveness and awareness to the blow I took to the head, it was more than likely because sleep had been winning at a game of hide and seek over the past three days. Sneaky prick.

"Daniel?" The nurse looked at me quizzically and it took me a minute to realize she was talking to _me_. Danny. Shot. Dead. Need a better alias. "Can you tell me what the day is?" Saturday? Sunday? One of those. I figured I'd better give her the right answer if I wanted to actually leave the hospital before the sun came up.

I guessed. "Sunday." She looked pleased with my answer. Good news. Who knew my test taking skills would come in handy after high school? (Dr. Sweeney probably knew.)

"How about your address? You seem to have left it out of your inventory." What address? And how do you seem to do something? I _seem_ to be bleeding.

I decided to tell the truth on that inquiry. Not having a place to sleep wouldn't have been a big deal in a few hours anyway. Besides, if the three nights previous were any indication on how that night would end, I wouldn't be doing much sleeping. "I left my address off the inventory because I don't have one, not because I don't remember it." I would have offered my previous address to prove I didn't have a concussion, but that would only prove officer untrusting's theory that I wasn't who I'd told him I was.

'Mom' and 'Dad' gave each other the 'we've found a lost puppy' look, but didn't press me on it. "Alright," the nurse said with another unconvincing smile, "let's worry about that later. First, we'll focus on stitching you up." She was talking like I was a four year old so I stopped kicking my feet and laid them restfully on the tile floor. She wheeled a chair around and sat eye level to me. It would have been the perfect angle to poke her in the eyes (let's see her be cheery after that), but I resisted; 'Dad might've gotten mad.

Removing the towel from my forehead she asked, "Have you ever had stitches before Daniel?" Danny. Shot. Dead. Tears. No. Go away.

"Yes."

x X x

It was three in the morning when I finally got out of the hospital with instructions to return in a week to get my stitches removed and go straight to my grandmother's house and get some rest. (Don't look at me like that; I had to tell them something.) I regretted ever agreeing to go to the hospital in the first place. The cut on my head could have easily been fixed at home, but, of course, I didn't have a home anymore, so that hadn't been an option. Still, that fucking ape had to have slammed by head into that wall harder than I'd thought—I'd willingly gotten into a police cruiser. What the hell's the matter with me?

x X x

I should have anticipated Jimmy Gustavo's reaction to my obviously sleepless and busted up appearance when I showed up for my first day of work later that morning. He went on and on about how much bullshit it was that I'd _fallen_ into a wall, and asked me again and again if he had been mistaken to give me the job in the first place. I knew Jimmy wouldn't fire me without at least giving me one pay check, so I let him rant for a good half hour. I resisted asking if he felt better when he sent to find out why the dishwasher was smoking instead of steaming.

It was a day of education. I learned two more things shortly after entering the restaurant's kitchen: my new work friends had further intentions to shove my hands down the garbage disposal than to become my friends, and there were, in fact, derogatory names floating around out there that I had yet to hear.

x X x

_Beni_

Jimmy's Burger's was more popular than I would have anticipated. The little bell over the doors rang so many times I'd had to see if the door was moving after a while or if the ringing in my ears was my memory of it. I'd already counted how many off-white ceiling tiles there were—forty-five—and determined that the floor tile was, in fact, closer to a light bark brown than a dark dirt brown before deciding that Derek Vinyard either hadn't gotten a job there as he had mentioned, or he had become the invisible man. The first option seemed more plausible, but Derek hadn't had any reason to lie to me about the job, so I continued to sit there and chew on an already abused pencil.

My surprise attack wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. In order to ambush a guy who stood me up and demand what the hell his issue was even if I wasn't that grieved about it would actually have to include the guy's attendance. So far, that last requirement had yet to be fulfilled.

x X x

_Derek_

I should never have put that garbage disposal image into the universe—It came back to bite me in the ass… or the hand. Antonio Torres, an extremely large Latino who could spout Spanish faster than any 'gringo' who aced Spanish 2 could possibly follow, had managed to get a decent hold on my wrists and flip the garbage disposal on in one of the sinks simultaneously. We were screaming and cursing at each other in two different languages (it might have been amusing if I hadn't been two inches away from losing my fingers), and fighting for ownership of my hands when Jimmy walked into the kitchen looking like a auburn balloon ready to pop.

Antonio (Antonio Torres, I'm going to make you an offer you cannot refuse) released me and I flipped the disposal off myself right before Jimmy exploded. "Torres, Vinyard." He stopped there and eyeballed both of us individually. I wouldn't have known that the compassionate Jimmy Gustavo's voice could be so authoritative and downright pissed off. (Like I said: it was a day full of education. Maybe I should have taken notes.) "I happen to be close friends with both of your parole officers. Unless you want them to hear about this… unfriendly behavior, you two will find better ways of coexisting. Can I make that any clearer for either of you?" No papá. I shook my head and sensed that Antonio was a browner and substantially taller mirror of me.

Jimmy left the kitchen and Antonio rounded on me. "Maldito gringo," he said bitterly before returning to whatever he had been doing. I understood the 'gringo' part, but I'd have to ask Hector what 'maldito' meant.

I wasn't completely without friends at my new workplace. When I wasn't washing dishes (the lone dishwasher Jimmy did own was a small piece of shit that couldn't clean more than seven plates at a time without having a heart attack), Javier, a much smaller Latino than Antonio who obviously hadn't picked up a newspaper three years ago, made decent company. Javier didn't actually know a whole lot of English, or if he did he preferred not to use it, but he was a great lookout.

I rubbed a hand through my hair and gave the choking dishwasher a kick. "She still out there, Javier?" I asked him frowning as the dishwasher began to smoke again. Cheap fucking thing. He peeked out to the main area of the restaurant and a knowing smile crept from one ear to the other. He nodded and I groaned. Beni was one persistent woman.


	5. Coming Together Falling Apart

Coming Together; Falling Apart

Author's Note: I'm so sorry this chapter took so long! To say school has been hectic would be an understatement. I'm a junior in high school, so if any of you have been there or are there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone keeps asking me what college I'm planning to attend, and I'm like, 'NO! NOT YET! LET ME STAY YOUNG FOREVER! Anyway, this can, more or less, be considered the 'Thanksgiving chapter even though it neither references it nor holds any specifically wonderful qualities (other than the mad-awesome cliffhanger), but it does hold something valuable: my absolute gratitude!

I am soooooooo thankful for all of you guys! I hoped for two reviews for chapter four, and I got twice that! (Four is my lucky number, so that was a plus too.) Seriously, you guys are the gas that fuels my train of thought! Without them, I wouldn't have the motivation to write this or have fun while I do. I appreciate all of you, my readers, how few you may be compared to oh, let's see, Stephenie Meyer or someone like that. I wish that I could give you more than one chapter today. I love you all and wish nothing but joy and happiness and love in all of your lives!

Sorry for the romantic and long as shit author's note. I just wanted to express to you guys how much your reviews mean to me, and with the proximity of Thanksgiving, it was a perfect time. Thanks again and again and again for all of your reviews. Please continue to read, enjoy, and tell me what you think!

"In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds."

-Aristotle

My eight hour shift soon turned into a ten hour one. Beni refused to leave! She sat at her booth and gnawed relentlessly at pencil after pencil, glancing around now and again with increasing frustration. It was just after five when she decided to give up, shoving textbooks and notepads back into her shoulder bag and stalking out of the restaurant.

I made sure to apologize to Jimmy for showing up looking like a zombie and for the incident with Antonio before I left. I hoped I still had a job the next day. Duffle bags back in my possession, I snuck out the back door just to be sure not to run into my stalker. It was a wasted attempt—she was standing just outside the door. I contemplated pretending like I didn't see her, but her black, narrow eyes were so sharp I hesitated long enough to personally foil that plan. "Beni," I greeted simply.

She put her hands on her hips, and I nearly rolled my eyes. She looked like my mother about to scold me for getting a 'D' on a test (which I never did, but that's beside the point). "Are you avoiding me, Derek?" she asked. Well, I would have been avoiding the front of the restaurant whether she had been staking me out there or not, but the fact that she had been probably did contribute.

"Technically, no," I decided on answering. She seemed less than satisfied by my answer, but surprised me by appearing less irritated than she had been initially. I could tell she was trying not to smile, and I couldn't help but smile myself. That set her off laughing, a small, high-pitched sound—a sound I was beginning to like. "You're not very good at this confrontation thing are you?" I commented and she shook her head.

Then her expression became suddenly serious and she gestured to my forehead. "What happened? You fall into a wall?" Does the fact that she guessed my excuse mean I have to throw it in the discard pile and play another card?

x X x

I didn't lose my job: Jimmy Gustavo is a fucking saint. I did, however, find a very temporary place to stay. I say temporary because one night attempting to sleep on Dr. Bob Sweeney's couch had been quite enough.

x X x

The street was darker than I remembered it, so full of shadows that the house and my father's truck were the only things actually visible. I could hear Danny's voice behind me, shrill and panicked as he shouted out to me. I couldn't understand what he was saying. Adrenalin was streaming through my veins and an odd rushing sound filled my ears. The air was thick with a pressure that didn't make sense as my hand reached out too slowly to grab the remaining thief off of my yard.

He jumped up then and reached for my gun. This was not how I remembered it going! I reacted automatically, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Panic. Suddenly I wasn't standing in the street; I was standing in a school bathroom. Danny stared at me with shock, and the gun fell from my grip. I didn't hear it hit the tile floor. A drop of blood seeped from a bullet sized hole in my brother's forehead as he sank to his knees in front of me. "Danny!" I screamed again and again, wanting to reach for him. I was frozen, unable to move, forced to watch my brother slowly die from a wound that should have instantly killed him. This doesn't make any sense! "Danny!" He looked up at me then and his eyes were full of deadening hatred.

"Murderer."

My body awoke before my mind did. When my consciousness did catch up I was vaguely aware that Sweeney was kneeling beside the couch, and I had his shirt collar clutched in both of my hands. I released him immediately, unclenching my hands like his bed-shirt was made of fire. My chest heaved as I fought for breath. I could tell my eyes were about to bulge out of my head, but my vision was still blurred from sleep, and Sweeney was drifting in and out of focus. I noticed slowly that his mouth was moving. I wondered why he was mouthing my name and realized that the rushing sound from my dream had followed me into wakefulness.

"Derek!" Sweeney was shaking me by the shoulders now and I tried to move away from him. I was going to be sick or something if he didn't knock it off. My name, which he seemed to be shouting repeatedly, sounded like a call from underwater. The rushing in my ears stopped instantaneously. "Derek, are you alright!"

"Stop yelling!" I reached my hands up automatically to my head, which was pounding to the beat of my hammering heart. Sweeney seemed to relax slightly now that I was responding. He leaned back and gave me some room. I blinked a few times and my vision sharpened. I became aware that I was soaking wet, my hair dripping salty droplets of cold sweat onto my forehead and into my eyes. My long sleeved, white shirt was clinging to my torso. I scowled down at the thick, black tattoo that showed through easily. Fucking thing.

"Derek, are you alright?" Sweeney asked me again, and a female hand reached towards me with a class of water. I glanced up at Barbara, Bob Sweeney's wife, and took the glass gratefully. I took a long drink. Barbara looked satisfied with herself and hurried back towards their bedroom. She glanced at me again, and fear was evident in her expression. My stomach plummeted at that look and I dropped my gaze, starring at my hands circled around the water glass.

I didn't trust my voice not to shake, so I just nodded in response to my old teacher's repetitive question. I was, contrary to the gesture, far from alright—Danny's hateful face was still locked in the back of my mind—but I'd already cried enough tears in front of Dr. Sweeney to last him a lifetime. Neither of us needed a repeat of that.

"Don't close yourself off, Derek." Sweeney demanded, and his tone made me look up. He was too perceptive for his own good. "You can talk to me."

I laughed once, hard and without humor. "Sweeney, you're not my father," I said more icily than was necessary. I was tired of people trying to imitate Dennis Vinyard. It was an impossible mountain; Dr. Bob Sweeney couldn't summit the thing if he tried_. But at least he's trying_ something in my head argued.

"Why do you refuse to let me help you? You've never been this stubborn to accept my advice." I heard the double meaning of that statement as though he'd said it aloud. _You've only been this stubborn to accept my advice since Danny died._ So what? Sweeney's cryptic words might have helped me get through Chino, but that book was closed. Then, I'd had the illusion that bettering my life would be possible. Then, I'd thought if I could only survive prison, I could return home and bring the pieces of my life back together—bring my family back together. That ship sailed when I saw Danny lying motionless on the bathroom floor. I turned my back to it as it sailed over the horizon and out of sight, holding my dead brother in my arms, the weight of responsibility pulling hard on my heart, the waves of an unnamed sea forcing my head beneath the water.

I stood from the couch and reached for my bag sitting on a nearby chair. "Derek, you can't leave, it's three in the morning," Sweeney said while standing too. I ignored him and stalked towards the bathroom, slamming and locking the door before he could protest. I pulled off my wet clothes and traded them for a navy T-shirt, jeans and my jacket. I rubbed my face clean with cold water and walked back into the living room. I'm sure Sweeney was shocked I could stay so quiet. Back in high school, he could never get me to shut up in his class.

"Derek, please. Let. Me. Help. You." He said each word slowly, and I rounded on him. I could feel his desire to grab me by the ear like a child and yell so I might hear him more clearly. He also seemed to realize shouting wouldn't have made a difference in the situation.

"Stop trying to fix me," I demanded in an angry voice I was sad to recognize as one I'd been accustomed to using a little over three years ago. I would have continued with the cliché proclamation that you couldn't fix something that wasn't broken, but that wouldn't have been the truth. I didn't believe I was a whole man with not a crack or tarnish to speak of—I was just broken beyond repair, and it would be a useless endeavor.

x X x

Hector wasn't happy about my lack of residence, but it hadn't been quite as easy to find one as it had been to convince Jimmy that I deserved a job. If only the man also owned an apartment complex. I spent a week avoiding sleep, Beni, and Sweeney. I was winning the sleep race, but Beni was as interested in Jimmy's Burgers as she had been, and Sweeney seemed to crave a daily burger since the incident in his living room. It was just what I needed: more people following me around.

The Derek Vinyard fan club had already taken their usual seats when I arrived for my second week of work. Sweeney ignored the entire pretense of ordering a cheeseburger, reading the newspaper, and then people watching that morning and skipped right to my favorite part: the not so subtle interrogation. It seemed that Jimmy knew everyone who had any sort of influence in my life. When Sweeney first walked right into his kitchen like he owned the place, Jimmy had greeted him with an intimate handshake. Sweeney strode in again just as I was eying the still completely worthless dishwasher.

"Good morning Derek," he greeted sounding like the morning he'd had hadn't been good at all. Hello Dr. 'I must find a way to help Derek' Sweeney.

"Sweeney." _And that's all you get today._ Jimmy had been on my ass to get the damn dishwasher working, and it was difficult to concentrate on what I was doing with a psychotherapeutic black man preaching over my shoulder, asking me how I was doing as if it would change every hour to match his preference. Then he asked me how I had slept. Really? Were we at that point? Was it time already for the teacher-student moment? It was only seven in the morning! How could anyone even want a cheeseburger at seven in the morning? (People always did.)

"You're assuming that I slept," I told him matter-of-factly. He frowned but didn't answer.

"Vinyard! Give me a hand with these boxes, eh?" Antonio's head was peeking from out the back door and he waved at me. We'd come to a sort of understanding in the past four workdays: at work we're both human beings with aversions to returning to prison. Outside work, whoever draws his gun faster gets to live. The latter part of the pact was more or less not spoken out loud, but I counted it as if it had been.

"Yeah!" I shouted back, and Antonio disappeared again. I left Sweeney by the possessed dishwasher and almost sprinted out to help Antonio. Seeing as the Mexican and I weren't what you could call friends, the rapidity of my escape probably had more to do with who I was escaping from than who I was escaping to.

x X x

Sweeney finally left about a half hour later. He probably had some work to catch up on at the high school. Beni was still there when I checked around noon, but she was more patient than Sweeney, so she rarely straight up confronted me. It was preferable in a way, but the weird, appraising looks she always threw at me were unnerving, like she knew more about me than I did. Regardless, I continued to avoid her and the front of the restaurant entirely. There had been one intensely interesting afternoon a few days ago when a couple of D.O.C. guys came into the restaurant. I don't think my heart had beat so deafeningly fast since… well, since….

The damnable dishwasher was finally washing ten plates in the time it took me to wash a million and two when the end of my shift was approaching. I was drying a plate when someone from the front of the restaurant started shouting my name.

x X x

_Beni _

I was too absorbed in my novel to notice him at first. A black man, small in stature with buzzed hair, swaggered into Jimmy's Burgers and started yelling, a smile plastered onto his face. It wasn't even that he was yelling that caught my attention; it was _what_ he was yelling.

"Vinyard! Where are you, you crazy-ass peckerwood?"

I didn't expect Derek to actually leave the kitchen—he never did—but he almost came running out of the kitchen doors. I expected conflict, but Derek was smiling too. He walked right up to the other man without saying anything, and they performed a handshake I'd never seen before. (How cute, they have a secret handshake.) Then they hugged and I nearly choked on the pencil I was chewing on. Derek Vinyard just hugged a black man?


	6. Liars and Hearts Afire

Liars and Hearts Afire

Author's Note: I know! It's been forever since I've given you guys another chapter! Will you forgive me? (If that's a no, read the chapter and then reconsider!) Thanks for the reviews! I appreciate them more than you know! Please continue to review! I live for them. Thanks! Alright, I won't waste too much of your time but please note: this chapter is a little bit shorter than the others, but it has a lot of information. A chunk of time passes, so please don't freak out if the pacing is different from the previous chapters. I needed to get the ball rolling if you know what I mean. Please read, enjoy, and, of course, review! Again, sorry it took so long. Blame life, not me, a'ight?

"A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open."

- Francis Bacon

I'd never been happier to see a black man. Lamont, his white teeth dominating his face, seemed equally contented to see me, but I think I might have scared him with the hug. But if I can't hug the man who literally saved my ass in prison, who can I hug? I don't exactly have the option of hugging my family anymore, so I'm going to take them where I can find them. For Lamont's credit, he hugged me back, though stiffly, and didn't pull away until I did.

"Damn, D, you more crazy than I remember, man," he said, but his teasing tone stopped me from being offended. I just shrugged at the accusation. Maybe I was crazy. Does insomnia count?

The dangers of the front of the restaurant temporarily forgotten, I grabbed a booth so our conversation would be more private than our reunion had been. Lamont sat down across from me. I started with the most obvious question. "When did you get out?" I asked trying to do the math in my head. We had worked side by side in Chino almost my entire three years, not including the last month when he had been switched to another duty. He had mentioned spending two years in the kitchens, and had already been working laundry when I had arrived. That could certainly have added up to six years.

"Two days ago. I heard your suicidal ass was still in L.A. so I asked my sister to peek around for a goatee wearin' peckerwood." I didn't answer the 'suicidal' statement. I supposed a man decidedly staying in a city loaded with gangsters and skinheads, both of which who would love to see him dead, could be included in the category.

I laughed, but it sounded strained even to me. "Sending your connections to look for me, that's not stalker-ish," I commented, though I knew his older sister had been living in Los Angeles for years.

"I ain't no stalker, a'ight? Just wanted to make sure your stupid ass was still alive." His eyes became serious as he said that last part. I knew that look. It was the 'what the hell is going on with you, D?' look. Lamont was too good a friend. He was too damn observant, though it probably didn't take someone with 20-20 vision to see that I hadn't been sleeping. "What's up, D? You like a fuckin' zombie straight out of a low budget horror movie."

I knew that even if the inmates could get a newspaper into Chino, Lamont wouldn't have read it, and I hadn't spoken to him since leaving, so he most likely didn't know about Danny. I cleared my throat and waited until I could trust my voice to stay level before volunteering the information. "Do you remember me telling you about my brother, Danny?"

Lamont had been one of the only people, other than those that had told _me_, who knew that Danny had been following in his older brother's boot-steps. Of course, I hadn't known quite how far into all of it Danny had been, but that hadn't stopped me from ranting to Lamont. "Those peckerwood, disciples of crack still fuckin' around with him? You and me, D, we'll raise some goddamned hell for those motherfuck—." He cut off when I looked at him again. I have no idea what he saw in my face, but if it reflected what I was feeling at all, he saw despair, rage, and, most potently, guilt.

"He's dead."

x X x

_Beni_

I had only been half-listening to the men's conversation, so I wasn't watching my own reactions closely enough to catch my gasp of horror. Danny, dead? Daniel Vinyard, skinhead protégé junior and brother of Derek Vinyard was dead? How did I _not_ know about this! How could I be so freaking stupid! I was going to puke. Dead. How didn't I know? Why hadn't Travis told me?

x X x

_Derek_

"I'm sorry, Derek," Lamont said in a voice that didn't sound like Lamont at all. In the three years I'd worked next to him, he'd mostly been one of two things—downright hilarious (and mildly annoying at first) or downright pissed off at some stupid thing I'd done. Still, his remorseful tone didn't surprise me nearly as much as his use of my name. Around him, I was 'D,' not 'Derek.'

x X x

Just when Derek 'Homeless' Vinyard was about to throw in the towel and resign to living on the streets forever, Lamont swooped in and saved the damn day. Well, technically his sister was the one loaning me her _other_ couch, but she would never have done so without her younger brother's pleading. My one regret about the sleeping arrangement: Lamont and I would be having slumber parties in the living room while Deja's two year old daughter, Alexis got a room to herself. It's not that I'm pissed off that Deja didn't better accommodate her newest ex-con housemate. I just didn't like to be around other people while I slept. I had no control over what my dreams decide to torture me with.

I didn't mind Lamont's company. I shouldn't… I'd spent three years comfortable there… but the man was too blunt for his own good and for mine. It took him only two days to notice Beni's apparent stalker tendencies and confront her about it. "What exactly can D do for you?" he'd asked while I'd stood behind him about ready to die. She'd smiled at me, her straight, white teeth bright against her olive complexion.

"He owes me a date." Just shoot me now. Preferably in the head.

x X x

You could say I followed the first rule of dating when I actually showed up this time. That was right before I broke all of the other ones. Beni is way too easy to talk to: she had me spilling my guts before our meals arrived. I didn't tell her everything, but I certainly relieved some things from my serving platter of regrets and painful memories. It was nice to finally talk to someone about all the shit I'd been through and caused, who didn't already know all of it anyway. She was an open listener.

Beni did a lot of talking too. She told me about her parents's emigration from Japan when she was still a baby. She told me about growing up in New York City. I asked her why she'd moved to Los Angeles. She told me again about growing up in New York City. She told me about being a med student. She told me… blah blah blah. I think you get it.

x X x

Who would have guessed it'd only take a month for my life to start making a little more sense. Jimmy decided, thank the Lord, to replace his old dishwasher. I would have been out of a job if he hadn't pretended to need me as a waiter. I'd pretty much given up on the 'avoid the front of the restaurant or die' mentality. If someone walked into the place and wanted to start something, Jimmy kept a handgun in his office… which I'd found completely by accident.

Sweeney had taken the many hints I'd spit in his face, and he was leaving me alone. Davina and I were talking regularly thanks to Deja's landline. She said Doris is doing fine and was happy, but she sounded worried whenever I'd mention her. I'm not positive if she's nervous for my mother's health, or nervous about my reaction to her happiness with Murray. If I were her, I'd be nervous about both.

Lamont got a job at a construction site, so neither of us had had to skip out on paying Deja rent. I know, she's charging her own brother. I don't think she would have if she hadn't also been charging me. Only making me pay her rent would seem 'unfair' to her. Nice woman. Cautious and overprotective, but nice.

Last, but not least, I was actually in a steady relationship with someone who didn't want me to preach about white power. Beni had been a Godsend. She never ceased to surprise me how understanding she was.

x X x

As far as first kisses go, the one between Beni and I was by far the most awkward. Well, I don't actually think it was awkward for her, seeing as it was on her bed and she initiated it, but try, after years of genuinely believing anyone not white was the enemy, kissing a Japanese woman—awkward. She was hesitant, leaning towards me so slowly I couldn't be sure she was moving at first. I was debating whether or not to allow our lips to meet when my body made the decision for me and closed the foot of distance between us.

x X x

_Beni_

Derek's kiss was not what I expected. It was gentle, cautious, as if gauging my reaction before committing. My lips parted and as his followed mine, I felt the rest of his wall, built to keep people like me out, open to allow me entrance. "Will you show me?" I whispered when we separated. His eyes were closed and his forehead rested on mine as if he was very tired.

"Show you what?" he asked quietly.

I placed my palm on his left bicep and tapped it lightly with my forefinger. "Show me," I repeated. He was looking at me now, his eyes so trusting I almost felt guilty. Then I'd only have to remember that he'd killed men and those feelings would evaporate as if they were never there. He seemed reluctant, but finally slipped his long sleeved, black shirt over his head. A normal girl would have noticed his sculpted body, muscled but lean, but my eyes were locked on the black symbol on his chest. I traced it, running my finger over each arm of the swastika. Derek Vinyard… you are mine.

x X x

_Lamont_

D was floating, and I don't mean he was stoned out of his ass. He came home this morning smiling and cooked the family breakfast. Trust me when I say you do not want to taste any food prepared by Derek Vinyard. Now he practically skipped, okay not skipped, to retrieve the phone. It was 'Dr. Bob Sweeney.' That man annoys the shit out of me with his 'help Derek' fucking quest. It was obvious to me that D didn't want the man's help. So you can't blame a man for sticking around to eavesdrop on one half of the conversation, a'ight.

"Hey Sweeney. It's good to hear from you." Please, D, why don't you kiss his ass while you're down there? "No, why _would_ I read it?" Read what? "It has _what_?" Something was wrong, and you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. D hung up the phone, and if eyes could kill, I'd be dead. He was pissed, and not at me.

"You're driving me to the airport." It was a statement. "Grab your sister's credit card, I don't have enough money for a ticket." As if Deja isn't gonna be mad enough when she finds out I took her car!


	7. Better At Confrontation

Better At Confrontation

Author's Note: OMG, it, like, hasn't been, like, an entire month, like? Sorry, sometimes my brain is taken over by a vocabulary-less 'like' lover; I'm working on it. Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter and are still on board the Derek-train! I won't bug you for long because, let's face it, that last cliffhanger _had_ to have been leading up to something confrontational! Please read, enjoy, and review! I love you all! (If you don't love me, you'd better fake it if you want me to keep writing, lol.) Thanks again! Thanks again! Thanks again! Thanks again! Is this record broken?

"Half the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are not."

- E. R. Beadle

_Beni_

I deserved a pat on the back. Lying isn't hard, but it does take a specific skill to successfully fool Derek Vinyard. The man is not a dumbass. With his intellect, he should have been able to see right through me, but, luckily, he has had other things on his mind. Things, also luckily, that he didn't mind sharing with a sweet and understanding, immigrant, med student. Either I'm extremely talented when it comes to deception, or I've been extremely lucky that Derek has been otherwise distracted. I believe the previous, but why, then, do I feel like my luck reserve is running on empty?

I decided to disregard my mind's wanderings as I entered my workplace. I automatically felt more at ease as the doors closed behind me. This was my home. The ever-present scent of musty paper, the constant click of computer keyboards, the lingering taste of poorly brewed coffee: the characteristics of any decent newspaper. I pulled on the end of my skirt and shoved another pencil into my hair. I readjusted my glasses, which I actually didn't need, but loved the style of, as I headed for the elevator. It was a great newspaper…and I was a great reporter… or was I just a lucky one?

x X x

_Derek_

I held that morning's issue of The New York Post in a tight fist. The flimsy paper crinkled beneath my grip, but it didn't matter to me. Given the chance, I'd burn, shred, and otherwise destroy every single copy. I wanted to run around New York City like a mad man and tear my picture out, cross out my name. My name! My heart had only sunk lower than it had when I opened the newspaper to find my own picture looking back twice in my lifetime, and I'm sure you can figure out when those instances were. I know exactly when the photo was taken, except the small, Asian woman my arm encircled had been cropped from it. It was at Jimmy's Burgers. Given the time to notice, I would have been pissed Jimmy didn't get credit for the image.

An elevator bell pulled me out of my thoughts with a jerk. Beni's office was nice, and it gave me intense satisfaction that my booted feet were currently resting on the pristinely tidy desk. I supposed my presence in her office would surprise Beni enough, but if that didn't do it, my appearance certainly would.

x X x

_Beni _

Tell me this is not happening! Derek is not in my office! He is not holding this morning's issue with my first column easily readable. He is not wearing black pants tucked squarely into black boots. He is not half naked, with black tattoos, one in particular, screaming what was already apparent—I was so completely busted.

The office door swung shut behind me, but I couldn't move. I stood, petrified, as he began to read from my column.

"Disciple Vinyard," he spat and I cringed. Shit. This is not happening! "What a misleading title you've written." I wanted to say something in defense. Travis, my editor in chief, chose that title for the column, not me. It was his idea! I'm innocent! Well, actually, I'm guilty as charged, but this still cannot be happening.

x X x

_Derek _

I could see the horror and fear in her eyes. I wondered vaguely what she was afraid of. Me, probably, or losing her job, or both. I'd be afraid of me first. I had never been so livid in my life. The hatred and anger I had carried with me like a banner years ago did nothing to compare to this. I was pissed at Beni, but I was more irritated with myself and how much of an idiot I'd been. Looking back, it was frighteningly obvious. The way she'd always manage to keep me talking even if I didn't want to: the way she was always intent on what I was saying, not with caring interest I now realize, but with the careful ear that memorizes every word to later reproduce.

x X x

_Beni_

Derek paused, his eyes burning holes into my skin. "Let me explain!" I pleaded. I couldn't imagine where I would start. In all honesty, I didn't want to explain anything. I didn't owe him shit, no matter what he might have thought. I was a good reporter. Good reporters do what it takes to get the story. (Technically I was now a columnist, but that was only because Travis had more say than I did.)

"No, I think your column says enough. Derek Vinyard," he read, his eyes boring into mine with irate intensity that made me shrink back a small step. The doorknob pressed into my back as he continued, and my hands were trembling. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend this moment was just a sadistic dream. I wanted to ignore him as he read the words I'd written, but my eyes, wide and frightened, would not close, and I could not go deaf.

"Derek Vinyard, a white supremacist previously convicted of voluntary manslaughter, was _the_ skinhead of Venice Beach before his conviction." He skipped down a few paragraphs, skipping the short summary of the past he already knew… and lived through. "Though quick to preach, Vinyard has left his experiences in prison a near mystery to me. Being of Asian ancestry, though I am not an immigrant as I have led him to believe, his secrecy is unsurprising. What he has given me are clues, hints, and implications. I do know that there was an incident shortly after Vinyard insulted a member of the Aryan Nations, but he is reluctant to give me specifics.

Until next week, my new readers,

Elizabeth."

x X x

_Elizabeth_

When he read my name, I nearly lost my balance. At that moment, Beni was destroyed and Elizabeth Makino stood in her wake, mask removed, and defenses missing in action.

Derek didn't say anything. He just folded up the paper with stiff and jerky movements, his muscles bunching in frustration. I reached my hand behind me and twisted the doorknob, ready to flee. His head snapped up and he was on his feet and across the office just as I cracked the door open. He reached over my head and slammed it shut, flipped the lock, simultaneously shoving me away from the door. I caught myself on my desk and spun around. "Don't you touch me!" I bellowed and was proud by my authoritative tone.

He just crossed his arms and leaned against the door as if casually. I noticed, seemingly for the first time, that he had many other tattoos. I'd always been so preoccupied with the most obvious one, I'd failed to notice his body was littered with proof to his neo-Nazi identity. I just glared at him with new confidence, picking a pencil off the desk and twirling it with my fingertips.

Derek was in my face before I could blink, teeth clenched and blue eyes blazing. "Don't you give me that look, you fucking nip bitch!" he hissed, his six foot one frame towering over me. I was shocked, and the pencil tumbled to the floor. I never doubted Derek's feelings about those not of his race, but he'd never actually given me solid proof until now. "You are a disgrace to America, and I am ashamed I ever named you as anything more than that."

If this had been anyone else, I would have stabbed him with a pencil, but I was paralyzed. I'd known this all along! People don't change, no matter how many years they spend in jail, no matter what black guys they claim to have befriended, no matter how tender their kisses are…. No! Derek Vinyard is a murderer. He is a cold-hearted, angry skinhead who only cared for me when I pretended it didn't bother me. My mask is gone now, but so is his.

"Don't be naïve," I said finding my voice again, though my body still wouldn't move from beneath his. "You only ever associated with me because you thought I didn't know you. But I'm peeling back your layers, Derek Vinyard, and I'm unraveling your mysteries, and what I see beneath your pretenses is exactly what's standing in front of me." He seemed to take my words as a knife wound to the heart, but didn't move, and quickly recovered.

He laughed once without any sort of humor. "That's right, my 'mystery.' You want to know my prison experience, E-liz-a-beth?" he asked, spitting my name by syllable. I waited, my reporter side pulling out a mental notebook and pen. He seemed to notice my anticipation. Scoffing, he pushed off the desk and away from me, pacing. "I'd illustrate it for you, but I'd never do something like that to another human being." Even one as 'disgraceful' as I?

"No, you'd just shoot one point blank and crush another's face into a curb!"

x X x

_Derek _

Rage. At myself. At Ben—Elizabeth. At my father. At Danny. At my mother. At Murray. At Sweeney. At anything that dared to venture into my head. My heart was pounding, as was my head. Every time I unclenched my fists, they begged to become solid again but then would beg to be released as soon as I granted the request. Elizabeth was becoming more and more out of focus, a numbing and uncomfortable fuzziness creeping into my line of vision. My breathing was labored, as if there was no oxygen in the air I breathed—as if my lungs refused to recognize it.

"Fuck you."

I nearly whispered it. I flipped the lock and slammed the door open, ignoring the eyes that shot at me immediately. The recognition crossed every pair, and they parted like the Red Sea as I, a temporary Moses, marched past them. I'd left my jacket in Elizabeth's office, but I didn't turn around to retrieve it. All of New York City now knew my face, so covering my tattoos seemed like a wasted effort. I stopped halfway through the room and glanced to my right. A computer sat there, a man with platinum blond hair and hazel eyes parked in front of it. Another man was standing at his side. The second man's name tag read 'Travis Scott: Editor in Chief.' Our eyes met and he winked at me, though fear evident in the entirety of his body language.

I didn't speak to him, in fact, I'd be damned if I ever spoke to another stranger again. But I did do something even more careless than confronting Elizabeth at her workplace. My hands, without having any command from my mind, which was a bit distracted at this point, wretched the computer off of the desk. They carried it to the nearest window, four stories up, and threw it with all their strength, right through it. The glass, luckily not reinforced, shattered, and for a moment—only a moment—the computer was a cash register, and the glass that was splintering wasn't the property of the New York Post, it belonged to a Venice Beach grocery store. For a moment—only a moment—Father Vinyard watched as the object descended out of sight and heard the screams of the bystanders both from the room and the street.

The moment passed, Derek returned, and I walked out of the building, grabbing another copy of today's newspaper in the process. Before I hit the street again, there was a paper trail leading down all three flights of stairs, my picture and my name in small, unfixable pieces.


	8. Just Outside the Window

Just Outside the Window

Author's Note: Wow, you guys, it has been a long time! I'm so sorry about the long wait for this chapter. Let's just say life has decided to be life, and hasn't been very nice about it. Anyway, sorry again! I hope you all are still interested in what happens next, because I'm far from finished with Derek Vinyard. Thanks to all who reviewed! Please continue to do so! I love them more than the air I'm currently breathing. Enjoy… and please wait to skin me for keeping you waiting until after you read the awesome cliffhanger.

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."

- Edgar Allan Poe

The December air was crisp and dry in the mile high city. Snow floated down in flakes that seemed too big, too soft, too white against the darkening sky. The breeze, freezing anything not already glacial, slipped under the overhang, and I inhaled. The first breath cleared my head. The second one froze my nose hairs. The third stuck in my throat until I though I might suffocate. I managed another ragged breath before deciding I wasn't going to die from breathing in cold air, though I'd welcome the release at this point.

My black sweater, purchased from a New York City vender, was doing nothing to deter the cold, so I crossed my arms over my chest and brought my knees up, resting the heels of my boots on the bench. I glanced at the digital clock just in my line of sight through the window behind me. I still had a half an hour before I needed to make my way back through security and board yet another plane, this one to Los Angeles—a half an hour to sit and sulk and consider possible methods of murder regarding a certain reporter.

The bench shifted and I glanced up to find a guy probably not much older than myself who'd been on my flight from New York. He pulled out a cigarette and lit up. The smoke burned my nose but I didn't turn away from it or reprimand his habit. Noticing my absent interest in his smoke, he held his pack out to me. "You want one?" he asked with the cigarette balanced between his lips.

I shook my head and directed my gaze back towards the falling snow. "I don't smoke."

He scoffed and continued to hold out the pack of Marlboro reds. "You sure, man? You look like you could use one."

I faced him again and I'm sure my face wasn't exactly friendly. "Pal, I don't smoke. Not because I'm a recovering addict, not because it's like asking cancer to kill you, not because I don't have the money to support the habit—I just don't." I almost tore my own tongue out when I realized why I recognized my tone of voice. It was the same one I'd use when speaking to members of the D.O.C. Cameron taught me how to prefect it, making people hang on my every word as if I were Jesus reincarnate.

The guy put his hands up in mock surrender and his eyes widened. "Dude, don't shoot me or anything!" he muttered and my eyes narrowed. He got up, still holding his hands up as if I might attack him at any moment, and moved to another bench. He muttered it so quietly I nearly didn't hear him, but the New Yorker's words were as clear as if he had shouted them, "Fucking crazy skinhead."

My hands curled into fists instantaneously, and I averted my eyes. Maybe if I could pretend he hadn't just said that and he wasn't still sitting in 'kicking ass' distance, I wouldn't be tempted.

Another person joined the tense gathering under the overhang and she glanced at the bench I was sitting on obviously looking for the guy I was trying not to imagine feeding a lit cigarette to. Her eyebrows rose with the recognition as she clicked past me in heels way to high to be practical in an airport. She sat next to the smoker and kissed him on the cheek. "Is it just me, or it that the man who's face you spilled juice on this morning?" I knew it. They'd read the column.

Too much. Too many people knew who I was and the mistakes I'd make. Too many judgments, both spoken by mouths and spoken by eyes, had been crashing into my carefully built wall. The wall that was designed not only to deny people like Elizabeth access into my mind, but also to catch the waves of anger that I just then realized hadn't disappeared. Bricks were blown asunder—barriers I'd barely been able to create the first time around. Tempestuous waters rushed through the new openings in my defenses and I could feel my jaw tightening, the hair on my neck standing, rows of rigid soldiers, thought dead, rising to fight again.

A gunshot rang out and the airport disappeared. Seth backed away from me holding his injured hand and cursing under his breath. Even with the pistol raised in defense, a feeling of dark inevitability swept through me as I rotated, screaming for the crowd, full of people who would each love to dismember me, to get back. Their bodies showed reluctance, even fear, but their eyes leaked hatred and the promise of revenge.

The overhang came back into focus and I realized I was standing, the bench four steps behind me. The couple with the smoking problem cuddled a few yards away, their faces locked together. They parted and the woman kissed the man's nose. "Oh, that was real sweet," the man cooed at her.

Cold water. Hot breath. Humiliation. Pain. Blackness.

x X x

I knew where I was even before my eyes opened. The constant, steady beeping and odd smell of overly-sterilized air could only coexist in one place—a hospital. When I did manage to lift my eyelids, too heavy to rule out some sort of narcotic, the world was unfocused and moving at angles it ought not to move in. A blurry Sweeney sat in a stiff-looking chair across the room, reading a book and apparently unaware that his charge was awake. My vision cleared the longer I was conscious, and I squinted to make out the title of the book. "_Mein Kampf_?" I questioned, slightly stunned, and cringed when my own question made my already ringing ears ache.

Sweeney smiled, a pitiful thing that didn't reach his eyes, and looked up from his reading. "Did you know that Hitler alludes that his mother was raped by his father while he watched, helpless to save her?" His voice was tired, but enough Dr. Sweeney leaked into the question to justify a roll of the eyes.

"I did know that, actually. I think my old teacher might have mentioned it once while I was still in high school." I could still recite the entire lecture. Sweeney's lessons, academic or not, weren't something you'd be likely to get rid of.

"How are you feeling?" he asked and I would have flipped him off, but as I tried to lift my arm, I was annoyed to find it strapped to the bed.

"Well, except for a headache and… restraint chafing, I'm trying, vainly, to enjoy this bit of déjà vu."

Sweeney laughed, but it was clear nothing about my present circumstances was humorous. "At least you can lie down on your back this time," he commented, stashing his book into a briefcase.

I did my best to give the black man my most convincing scowl, but my head was pounding, making any intended facial expression turn out looking more like a grimace. "That's not funny." Sweeney nodded, as if agreeing. "Mind telling me why I feel like I've just landed in an insane asylum?" I asked, looking pointedly at the restraints.

"To stop you from hurting yourself any more than you already have."

"What are you talking about? I haven't hurt myself." Then why did my voice break?

"Derek," he said, standing and walking to the side of the bed. I wished he would sit back down; having him stare down at me like a lost cause was almost unbearable, "the police have two eyewitnesses who saw you run head first into a cement pillar… on purpose."

"Sweeney, I'm not suicidal!" Then why am I so defensive?

"Are you sure?" Get out of my head you self-righteous prick!

x X x

I had only one question, one I'd had to wait over twenty-four hours to get the opportunity to ask: "When can I leave?"

Doctor Tyler readjusted his glasses and folded his arms over his chest. He was a large man, way too muscular for a psychologist. He looked more likely to join the NBA than to tell me what's wrong inside my head. "You can leave when you are fit to do so," he said matter-of-factly. Of course, I almost forgot, I was suicidal now. No, I'm not denying that those sorts of thoughts had occasionally surfaced, but the event for which I was sitting in an office in some psychiatric facility was not even something I remembered, let alone an attempt to end my own life.

I scowled and mimicked Dr. Tyler's position, crossing my arms over my chest. The plain, white T-shirt, loaned to me by the hospital along with a pair of gray sweatpants, was uncomfortable and stiff. My feet were bare, though why I would shove a sock down my throat before trying to hang myself with a pair of pants was beyond me. "So, when I'm normal again?" I asked less for confirmation and more for the sarcastic edge.

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder only means you have had normal, if not severe, reactions to abnormal situations. The diagnosis doesn't make _you_ abnormal." Wow, Doc, you read that in a textbook or get it off a cereal box? He opened up a file, which no doubt had my name on it, and read a few things while I sat there, clearly agitated and clearly itchy from the overly clean shirt.

He looked up with a calculating and openly curious look. He looked like Elizabeth when we'd first met, and I dug my fingers into my arm to stop any expression from reaching my face. "Derek, what do you remember from the airport?" Everything… and nothing. Dr. Tyler seemed unfazed by my silent reply, and continued to ask questions as it I'd answered the first one. "Did you hear or see anything abnormal to the circumstances?" A gunshot—which I'd already been informed had actually been an old truck back-firing. I just looked at him with the blankest face I could manage. Analyze that.

Dr. Tyler sighed and stood up, pacing around the room until he was behind me, resting his hands on the back of my chair. I couldn't stop it before a shudder ran up my spine. "What did you relive when you ran into that pillar?" He asked this from a crouched position, his breath tickling my neck.

I was on my feet before I could command them to hold me up, and I stumbled, catching myself on Dr. Tyler's desk and sending a glass vase to the floor, where it shattered, water soaking the tile, flowers I couldn't name if you paid me reaching for their retreating sustenance. I turned around and clamped my hands on the edge of the desk to disguise their trembling.

Dr. Tyler stood, still behind the chair, and looked at me quizzically. "What's the matter?" he asked in a tone that made me want to cut out his tongue with an envelope opener.

"I'm uncomfortable with large men standing behind me," I snapped from between clenched teeth. Maybe you should go bowling with the funeral director who welcomed my brother to his premature death. You can bowl gutter-balls and discuss the joys of ignorance and stupidity.

x X x

Carson Cooper, how the hell did you even make it to your senior year? High school should have chewed you to bits by now and then spat out the unpleasant pieces. I know I wanted to, and I'd only been listening to you gripe for a little under ten minutes. If Dr. Tyler didn't stop encouraging sob story share time in group counseling, he was going to join you.

Carson sniffed violently before going quiet. Finally. "You say life at home was a big contributor to your stress. How come?" Dr. Tyler, did you want to live to see tomorrow? I ground my teeth and shifted in my folding chair, which was parked in a circle with seven other equally uncomfortable ones. Most the other psychotic adults, though Carson should have been kept at 17 until he had learned that life wasn't all rainbows and brownnosers, were listening with glistening and intent gazes as Carson continued. I stopped short of rolling my eyes—barely.

Carson sniffed again, and wiped a hand over his eyes. "Well, my folks fought a lot. Ma was a bitchy drunk, an' my Pop," he sniffed again, running a hand through shoulder-length, sandy hair, "was a bit of a control freak. He couldn't control Ma, though. Nothin' and nobody could control Ma. So my house was pretty much a war zone all the time an' I never got a bit—."

"Oh. Shut. Up." I regretted the words as soon as I spoke them out loud. Every eye in that room locked onto mine, a moment I'd been dreading and successfully avoiding.

Dr. Tyler gave me a death glare. "Derek, please don't interrupt. This is difficult for Carson, and he deserves your consideration and respect." Thanks mom. How about I show you what respect looks like from behind steel bars? I motioned for Carson to continue, pretending to zip my mouth closed and throw away the key.

"Like I said," Carson muttered with a shockingly dark look my way, "my home was pretty much a twenty-four seven war zone. They were always screamin' at one another an' throwing things—. What?" he crossed his arms over his chest and I put my hand down.

See how I did that—I raised my hand—respectful, no? "Kid, do you even know what a war zone looks like? Have you ever shot a gun? Heard the sound of a gunshot?" I looked him up and down with a slow, measured look. "Thrown a punch?"

"Derek, what's your point?" Dr. Tyler asked, looking increasingly irritated that I decided to actually participate in he group discussion of Carson's pathetically average life.

"My point is that Cooper needs to quit his bitching. The United States has the world's highest divorce rate, a statistic, Carson, your parents have either contributed to or will in the near future. Over three million cases of child abuse are reported in the U.S. a year. One in six women and one in thirty-three men will be a victim of rape in their lifetime." Thank you, whoever's listening, that my voice did not break.

"What's your point?" Dr. Tyler and Carson asked in unison.

I sighed and sat back in my chair, leaning my elbows on my knees, and starring into Carson's eyes until he looked away. "That your life does not suck as much as you'd like to think."

A long silence followed. Great, Derek, you've managed to be a preachy dick for the second time in less than a week. Bravo. Regardless, I couldn't force myself to care. It felt good to speak my mind again, however offensive those thoughts might have been. It felt good to release some of the anger and hatred, however inappropriate my undeserving targets. It had been freeing as hell to sit in Elizabeth's New York office with my boots all over her hard work and the damned tattoo grinning at her like the fool it adorned—and that was utterly terrifying.

"You're wrong." Carson was glaring at me like he wanted to burn my ass at the stake.

"How's that?"

"My folks are never gettin' a divorce." I raised my eyebrows in an obvious indication that he should explain before I give him another statistic. "It's impossible. My Pop died two years ago from heart failure."

"Fuck, we have something in common! Only your father wasn't shot putting out a fire for some fucking monkey asshole who probably started it in the first place. Are you an only child, Carson, because I'm gonna bet you are?" My tone was coarse and patronizing, but I couldn't help it. This kid would not shut his mouth. I waited a moment before he nodded, looking at his worn sneakers and crying again. "Then I'm gonna go ahead and suppose your little brother wasn't shot to death in a school bathroom."

Carson stopped talking… and sniffing. Dr. Tyler was rubbing his temples. One of the other people in the room, a guy who needed very badly to find a good toupee (he could have Hector's! No, wait, we decided on a _good_ toupee), commented before the good doctor had the chance. "If he's a bitchy baby, what does that make you?" he asked with a self-congratulatory smile.

"I was making a point, not trying to get a circle of strangers to cry for me." And I had made my point, which is why baldy didn't say anything else.

"Well, since we're transitioning, do you want to share next, Derek?" Dr. Tyler asked.

"No."

He sighed and scratched at his clipboard with a pencil. I wonder what he was writing: Critical of others, yet unwilling to share? "Alright…. what was your father's name?" Father. Denis. Shot. Dead. Gone forever. This guy really didn't want to see tomorrow.

"No."

"It wasn't a yes or no question." Oh sorry, I thought 'no' would be more respectful than 'fuck off.'

x X x

There was one positive thing about that place, and it most definitely wasn't the football player-sized psychologists—they had a basketball court, complete with a basketball that actually bounced. I was about to land my fifteenth free-throw when the ball was knocked out of my hands. I looked up to find Carson standing beside me looking up at me with an expression I couldn't identify. "How did you even do that? You're what, five foot two?" I asked bitingly as I jogged to get the ball from where it rolled to across the court.

"Five foot four," he said, kicking a rock at the fence. "I see they gave you some shoes," he commented and I looked at him to see if he was mocking me. His face was completely serious.

"Yeah, well, I'd be more likely to get frostbite without shoes on." I suppose the fact that I'd ditched the orange coat they'd given me shortly after realizing it was more restricting than a straight jacket defeated the whole purpose, but I'd rather lose my arms from the cold and be watched by cameras than die of boredom indoors being watched by balding patients and analytical football players.

"Why'd you do that to me?" Carson asked and I sighed, shooting a flawless three-pointer before even considering answering that question. I had no idea why. Maybe because it was easy. Maybe because the kid was more annoying than a two year old in a toy store. Maybe because I'm a neo-Nazi jerk. Carson, you can go ahead and choose for yourself. I shrugged and went to retrieve the basketball. "Pass it over," Carson called, and I threw him the ball. Without hesitating, he turned where he stood and shot a perfect three pointer, no rim.

I scowled and retrieved the ball. "Aren't you a little short to play basketball?" I commented, hoping he'd get offended, walk away, and go cry somewhere private, or otherwise away from me.

"Aren't you a little white to play basketball?" That would have been touché if it hadn't come from the mouth of the blondest guy in group. I shot another basket and was pleasantly satisfied when I made it.

"What does D.O.C. mean?" he asked, and I was lucky I wasn't chewing on something, or I would have choked and died right there.

"What?"

Carson gestured to my forearm, where a Celtic cross sat, permanently parked on my skin, just above the initials to my least favorite group of people. Part of me wanted to blurt out the truth then and there—probably the same part that decided to throw a pity party in group—and another part wanted to tell him to shove it. I compromised. "Guess."

Carson actually seemed to think about it, rubbing his temple like the sensation might magnetically attract the correct answer. "Oh, let's see. Damn Obnoxious Crazy?" he suggested with a grin.

"That's exactly it."

"Is it a religious thing?" he asked, retrieving the basketball and shooting another basket.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. What happened to Crybaby Carson? All the sudden he was Curious Carson, which was equally irritating. "That… depends on who you ask."

"I'm asking you." My apologies, I thought you were asking the basketball.

"In that case, Carson, ask me another question, and I'll fucking kill you." He walked away so fast, I think he believed me.

x X x

Lamont stopped the car in front of Deja's small house, but neither of us moved to get out of the vehicle. I rubbed a hand over the dent in my forehead, tracing the rough edges of the fresh wound. My head was going to run away if I didn't stop abusing it. That made three times it had been run into a solid object not counting my adolescence. I looked at the house and fidgeted. Facing Lamont after the shower incident had been awkward enough. Now I was sitting in his sister's car after a 72 hour stay in a mental institution. It was getting increasingly difficult to be the 'unbreakable D.'

"Sweeney waiting inside to ambush me?" I asked already knowing the answer.

"Hey, man, it ain't my fault the man is persistent, a'ight," Lamont said, raising his hands in mock defense. I took a deep breath and got out of the car, hoping Sweeney's horse wasn't so high I wouldn't be able to see him.

x X x

What does it mean when you dream about standing in front of a mirror, arguing with yourself, one side of the mirror depicting a smiling man, clean of condemning tattoos, styling a full head of hair and the other side depicting a snarling man, head shaved and tattoos shouting louder than the two men put together? What about if you're unable to discern which one is you and which one is the reflection?

"Derek…."

The snarling man pointed at the other, accusing, criticizing, livid, while the smiling man, still doing so despite the conflict, pointed himself, accusing, criticizing…, livid?

"Derek," …

My soul felt like it was being torn in half, each man forcing an arm in the opposite direction.

"Derek, damn you, wake up!"

My eyes snapped open to find Lamont standing over me, phone in hand. Deja was standing behind him, shushing her brother so he wouldn't wake up Alexis. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding, and my black, long sleeved shirt clinging to my chest, cold with sweat. "What!" I demanded trying to think of anything that would justify waking me up… not that sleep had been pleasant.

Lamont just held the phone out to me. "It's Davina. Man, she sounds scared as shit."

I grabbed the phone from his hand, sitting up simultaneously. I put the phone to my ear and could already hear my younger sister crying on the other line. "Davina, what happened?"

She just started sobbing harder, and I could hear her roommates trying to calm her. Failing, one of them answered me instead. "Someone just ran around our house with a baseball bat and shattered all the windows. We can't tell if he's gone or not. It was… Davina, honey, who was it." I could hear them conversing, but I couldn't make out the words. The second of suspense was almost more than I could take. Whoever it was, they were going to fucking regret threatening the remainder of my family. The roommate got back on the phone and took a deep breath.

"Seth?" It was a question.

Not to me.


	9. Burning the Brave Man

Burning the Brave Man

Author's Note: Firstly, I AM SO VERY SORRY for my four month absence. In case you didn't read the note at the bottom of my profile, my flashdrive was lost/stolen, and what I'd had written of this chapter with it. After that, it took me awhile to be able to write the chapter without getting pissed off that I'd lost the original and everything I'd had written on that flashdrive. Anyway, I am back and I am prepared for any rotten fruit you might be inclined to throw at me. In this chapter, I brought back a few original characters from a few chapters ago, so if you run into the names Javier and Antonio and are like, 'who?' you might need to reread, which is completely my fault, and again, I apologize for that! All that being said, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please review!

…but go easy on the flying fruit…

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

_Lindy_

I'd never seen Davina cry before. My best friend since grade school was passionate and outspoken, but rarely was she at all vulnerable, let alone in absolute hysterics. She just stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the door with wide, childlike eyes, clutching the telephone to her chest like she used to hold her favorite Funshine bear. I'll not pretend that my own heart was beating any slower, but with Erica lying in the fetal position underneath the kitchen table, holding her head as if she could force her migraine away with sheer will, someone had to be collected. Why was it always me?

I had thought that Seth was gone, but those hopes were trampled on by the new noise of someone banging on the front door and screaming obscenities I wouldn't dare repeat. I realized too late that the door wasn't locked, and as soon as Seth realized it, he was sure to barge in, bat flying. The man, obviously intoxicated by the sound of his slurred words and lack of repeatable vocabulary, shouted Davina's name and she shrieked, running to crouch behind an armchair. I cringed as she bent over a small pile of broken glass, but _she_ didn't seem to notice it.

My attentions returned to the door as the knob started to turn. I longed for the phone in Davina's hands, wanted to call him again. What if he wasn't coming? What was I supposed to do? The door busted open and Seth filled the entryway. I was amazed at myself for not recognizing him from high school until Davina had said his name. He'd been bigger then, assuming that was even possible, but he looked much the same except with thicker sideburns. Now he glared at me with a look that spoke thousands more words than he could ever express aloud, and not a single one of them were comforting.

Seth took a step into the room, and my heart flew into my throat. I would have fallen over had Seth not suddenly done so before I had the chance, dropping to his knees as if someone had kicked them in. My heart returned to its proper place and began to beat like a hummingbird's wing when Derek appeared behind him, gun in hand and pressed to the larger man's temple.

Despite Seth's lack of alteration, the man standing behind him, muttering something inaudible into the larger man's ear, couldn't have been more different than the straight 'A' receiving jock I followed around in High School. His hair, once so long and silky you just wanted to run your fingers through it, was cropped short. His face, that used to only crumple when he was cramming for an exam, was pallid, pained, and dark.

Dark in a way I could never accurately describe or begin to understand.

x X x

_Derek _

It didn't take more than a death threat and the immediate confiscation of his baseball bat (which was all but useless in the hands of a drunk asshole who couldn't hit a baseball if it was sitting on a stationary object) to convince Seth it was probably beneficial for him to run on back to Cameron, but in his utterly wasted state, he would most likely end up passing out somewhere between Hell's highway and the four corners. As long as he didn't return to Davina's house, I really couldn't give a shit.

I'd only been inside the house for a little under five minutes before part of me was regretting coming to the rescue. I was officially barred from walking through Deja's front door again, the woman more than livid with me for bringing a gun (which was never loaded and was frighteningly similar to the one that had randomly disappeared from Jimmy's office) into the same house as a toddler. Lamont, having dropped me off in his sister's car, had driven back to get my stuff. Beyond the homeless again crisis, Davina and her roommates were all in some stage of a psychotic breakdown. Davina was sobbing while shards of glass dug into the soles of her feet, Lindy was starring at me in a way that made whether or not she was happy to see me again indiscernible, and the other roommate I wasn't acquainted with was crawling out from under the kitchen table with fear etched into every square inch of her body.

The unnamed young woman gained her feet and pointed at me in an insultingly accusatory manner. "Why'd you let him get away? We should call the police!" Before I could respond to either statement, she was picking the phone up from where my sister had dropped it and dialing. Before she could press one, I tore the phone from her hands and promptly placed it on a shelf above my head that her roughly five foot four inch frame would need assistance to reach. "What are you doing?" she demanded, eyeing the pistol still locked in my hand with unmasked dislike.

I slid the magazine out and put it in the pocket of my black pants, took the bullet from the chamber, and put the disliked object on the shelf next to the phone. "What's your name?" I asked, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Erica. Why aren't you calling the police? They need to catch that guy before he comes back!"

"Hi, Erica. I'm Derek," I replied, temporarily ignoring her apparent need to involve the cops. "I'm not calling the police because Seth's _friends_ would only have him back on the streets by morning."

Red heat rose on Erica's cheeks. "Don't talk to me in that patronizing tone! You don't know that for sure! At least I'd be able to sleep soundly knowing the crazy fat ass wasn't coming back." She stomped her foot in aggravation. "Now, give me the phone!"

I was bent over her, my face inches from hers before I could stop myself. "Look! My P.O. would be less than thrilled to find me keeping a gun, and I really, _really_ don't feel like returning to prison. So, I suggest you shut the hell up, take a second to find whatever calm with bravery enough to appease you, and find me something to patch up these windows."

The terror in her eyes was disturbingly satisfying.

x X x

_Davina_

I suppose everyone has their breaking point. I just regret that mine had been by the hands of that piece of shit. I refuse to believe that fear of Seth had been the thing to unleash the floodgates and momentarily hide my ability to think anything except that I was going to die… and not by pleasant techniques. A shrink would be likely to spout something about the loss of my little brother, which, of course, would have reminded me of the loss of my father, which, of course, would have reminded me of the temporary loss of my big brother, which….

Well… I suppose this hypothetical psychoanalyst would have been at least partly right.

A sharp pain shooting through my foot and into my calf brought me out of my self-reflection. "Shit, that hurts!" I hissed, but Derek only tightened his hold on my heel. He'd been pulling glass out of my feet for the past hour while Erica and Lindy duct taped cardboard over the windows. Finished with their task, my roommates sat down across from where my brother and I sat, my foot in his lap, at the kitchen table. We sat like that for about ten minutes, the only words offered by anyone being my own groaning complaints and Derek's countering demands to sit still.

Both of my roommates were staring at my brother as he peeled shards of glass out of the most sensitive part of my body, Lindy with open curiosity and what seemed like awe, Erica with a look that spoke of murder.

x X x

_Derek_

I'd always known Lindy had something of a crush on me during high school, but being the center of her attention wasn't quite as amusing as it had been back then, though I'd take two Lindy's gawking at me anytime if it meant Erica's own glare would disappear from my peripheral vision. She looked like Cameron the last time I'd seen the man. Maybe if I offered to feed her own heart to her, she would look away.

Apparently, Lindy was just as uncomfortable with the silence as I was—I wish she hadn't broken it. "So… Derek, what have you been up to since high school?"

My eyes, along with those of the other two girls in the room, shot to Lindy's face, which reddened noticeably. A humorless smile flickered across my own face. "Are you serious?" was all I could ask. She had to be joking. She shrugged and looked down, probably embarrassed to have offered such a down right horrible conversation starter.

"What'd you do?" Erica asked, taking advantage of her roommate's opening.

"Erica!" Lindy and Davina shouted in unison, but she ignored them.

I set the tweezers down and dabbed at Davina's feet with hydrogen peroxide. "That depends," I answered, looking Erica in the eyes. "Do you want to know what I did or what I was convicted of?" That shut her up long enough for me to finish wrapping my sister's foot in gauze and steal away from the table of uncomfortable questions. "I need some air. I'll be on the porch if you need me," I announced and strode from the kitchen as if the damned thing was on fire.

x X x

Elizabeth had no face, but her voice was identifying enough. She cocked her head at me, her office shifting into a dark and blurry chaos. "Why'd you kill me, Derek?" she asked, and I shook my head instinctually. What the hell was she talking about? I didn't kill her! I tried to tell her so, but my throat constricted until I couldn't breath. I fell to my knees and struggled against the invisible bindings, clawing at my neck until the skin buckled beneath my fingernails and blood ran over my hands. I looked up, trying to convey without words that I needed help, but Elizabeth only cocked her head to the other side.

"Why'd you kill me?"

In a movement too sudden, the Asian woman was inches from my face, her thumbs pushing into my windpipe, the hold firm despite the ribbons of slick skin. "Why'd you kill me?" she demanded more forcefully. Her features began to sharpen despite my oxygen-starved brain, but it wasn't Elizabeth's face that appeared. Her raven hair began to fall away in knotted tuffs, floating into the blurred blackness surrounding us. Her skin lightened, her hands grew and hardened, and when I blinked, the reporter was no longer holding me fast by the throat—Father Vinyard was. I looked at myself in horror and my struggling renewed. Annoyed by it, my twin shook me until my head knocked back and forth. Stopping, he lifted me to my feet with one hand and then lifted me further until my legs dangled uselessly beneath me.

He seemed to grow then, rising to tower over my limp and asphyxiated frame.

"WHY DID YOU KILL ME?"

x X x

A door slamming shut shocked me out of my dreams. My head snapped up and Davina, outlined by the light of the moon, gave me an apologetic look. "I didn't mean to wake you up," she claimed, but I shrugged, more than glad she had done so. I'd much rather have an awkward midnight moment with my sister than dream about myself strangling… myself…. Even I can't figure out if that was sarcasm or not.

I let my head fall back to rest against the house and patted the concrete beside me as an indication for Davina to sit down. She sighed and plopped down next to me. "Bad dream?" she asked absently, rubbing her forehead with her palm as if her own dreams were no more pleasant. I shrugged again in response. Bad dreams seemed to be the only kind those days. "Me too." Not for lack of curiosity, but I didn't ask her what she'd dreamt about. I sure as hell wouldn't have reciprocated the answer had she asked me. We sat in silence for awhile, each caught up in our own turmoil.

"I'm sorry I came at you with the baseball bat," Davina remarked randomly. I looked at her, shocked and appalled, automatically recapping the moment in my head. I saw her infuriated face—watched myself insist that I'd never do anything to hurt her, to hurt any of them.

I placed my hand over Davina's and pretended not to notice how she it drew back as if by instinct. "You have nothing to be sorry for," I told her. "I would have bashed my face in too."

x X x

_Elizabeth_

Derek's expression turned about fifty degrees colder when he noticed me sitting at the booth just inside the doors of his workplace. It took every ounce of my will power to keep my posture relaxed, my face aloof while unthreatening, and to stop my hands, folded atop the table, from trembling. The only reaction that I could not control was the automatic pounding of my heart, which I was sure he could detect despite the low possibility. Lamont trailed his friend into the restaurant, and, not shockingly, the black man decided to comment on my presence first.

"This is why I always tell you not to judge a book by its cover, D. You can never see the layers of evil bitch swimmin' beneath the surface," he stated loudly, characteristically talking with his hands. Derek gave him the 'shut up and let me handle this' look, and Lamont put his hands up innocently, sitting down at a nearby table and pretending to be interested in a menu. "That's cool with me. I'll just be over here minding my own business."

Derek sat down across from me, and I half expected him to recline and rest his boots on the table in a mirror of his position the last time I'd seen him. Instead of doing that, he just crossed his arms over his chest. "So, you want an interview or something?" he asked scathingly.

I tried to keep my voice even as I responded. "I don't know what I'd do with it. Your tantrum at the office got me fired." I do believe the specific words Travis had used included 'careless, sloppy, and bitch.' I never knew the man had such a sharp tongue.

"You want an apology?" Derek asked sarcastically. I looked at my hands, suddenly uncomfortable. In truth, I didn't know what I wanted. I'd just gotten in my car and somehow ended up back in California, back in Venice Beach, and eventually, back in Jimmy's Burgers, looking to catch a glimpse of Derek Vinyard. "I'm sorry you're a manipulative liar. I'm sorry I ever got my hands on a copy of that column." Derek paused and I looked up at him. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to continue, and I let him think, keeping my own mouth uncharacteristically unmoving.

His eyes met mine, and a wave of both familiar and unwelcome warmth flew into my chest. "I… I'm sorry for what I called you," he finally said. "I had every right to be angry at you, but it was still wrong."

To say I was caught off guard would be the understatement of my lifetime, but his apology didn't catch nearly as much as the feelings stirring just beneath my skin.

When I took the Vinyard Assignment, I was under the impression that I'd be cozying up to some skinhead who'd gotten a walk in the park sentence for murder. I'd been questioning my initial impressions for months until the confrontation in New York, when it had seemed like every one of them were confirmed.

But here I was again, wondering who the hell this guy was, and how much of what I knew about him was fiction and how much of it was truth.

x X x

_Derek_

When the bell over the door rang, I glanced over my shoulder instinctively. My shoulders stiffened as Cameron strolled into the restaurant flanked by Seth on one side and my favorite six foot eight prison buddy on the other. When was Eric Bane released, and why had Hector decided that I wasn't entitled to the information? The three of them stopped in front of my table, and Lamont and I both stood, Elizabeth following suit. Even with her and Lamont on either side of me, I felt more exposed than I had since being under the scrutinizing glare of Dr. Tyler—only worse.

"Derek. It's been awhile. You're not avoiding me, are you?" It was a rhetorical question, so I didn't reply, and Cameron moved on to address one of my companions. He studied Elizabeth for a moment and smirked. "Well, if it isn't Elizabeth Makino, my least favorite reporter."

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin a fraction of an inch higher. "If it isn't Cameron Alexander, my least favorite scum bag." Seth went to take a step forward, but Cam held him back with a lift of his hand.

Eric's face was twisted in dramatized disgust. "Interesting company you've been keeping, Vinyard." His eyes flickered over them individually. "The nigger from Chino and the nip from New York."

I looked the taller man straight in the eyes. "Fuck you."

Eric's eyes lit up in what seemed like amusement. He crossed his arms over his chest in a slow, deliberate movement. "We tried that already."

Doubtless an angry one, I had always been a man who had control over himself, but in the last few months, whatever control I had once retained had drained out of me in a steady and unbroken stream—a stream that, in that moment, became a furious, unbridled river. We'd each managed to get in a few decent blows and knock over a couple of tables before three sets of hands grabbed hold of me and hauled me backwards until my blazing red view of Eric was blocked by the kitchen doors.

I could hear Eric's laughter coming from the front until it was suddenly cut off by a very authoritative-sounding Jimmy. I was sure the three men he was telling to get the hell out of his restaurant would have been happy to laugh in his face, but Cameron wasn't an idiot, and would probably leave before he gave the police an excuse to pay him a visit.

I fought against the three men, Lamont, Javier, and Antonio, that had firm holds on both of my arms until I was too tired to keep it up. I sank against the counter and, when they released me, rubbed both my hands on the back of my neck, resting my chin on my chest. When I looked up, I had five people starring back at me, only Lamont's face missing the horrified expression. Elizabeth was farthest away from me, but she was the first to speak. "I am so sorry," she managed to choke out before she covered her mouth and fled out the back door. Javier followed her muttering something in broken, heavily accented English about how she should use the bathroom if she needed to throw up.

Jimmy told Lamont and Antonio to take off. When we were alone, Jimmy sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. "You can tell your friends they'll be paying for the damages to my place."

I laughed once without humor. "They'd be more likely to trash it entirely." Jimmy nodded in agreement. He knew that. "Besides, I threw the first punch."

Jimmy shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder. "No, you didn't."

x X x

Why did it seem like, more times than not, my sleep was interrupted by gut-wrenching phone calls? I could hear the sirens screaming behind Sweeney's voice, and as I ran from Davina's house, my sister and her roommates tailing me in their pajamas, I could almost smell the smoke.

Author's Note: In case it wasn't obvious, Eric Bane is, as they call him in the cast on IMDB, 'huge Aryan,' Derek's assaulter. I figured I should give the guy a name.


	10. When a Warring Party Breaks

When a Warring Party Breaks

Author's Note: I know, I know! It's been TOO LONG! I blame school, homework, the impending doom that is college, and the democrats. PLEASE FORGIVE ME! Anyway, happy tenth chapter! It's a good one! I only foresee three to four more chapters of this little story (not so say there won't be a sequel), so there's some pretty intense rising action. Enjoy! Review! Forgive me!

"War does not determine who is right—only who is left."

- Bertrand Russell

Even as my boots assaulted the sidewalk, I could feel my stomach dissolving into them, where the particles then magically migrated to form a lump in my throat. Black smoke burned my nose as I got nearer to the blaze, and an asthmatic Erica coughed relentlessly from behind me. Sweeny tried to intercept me when I finally got there, but I sidestepped him with an impatient look and searched the growing crowd for Jimmy. I found him standing dangerously close to his burning livelihood as a frustrated fireman shouted for him to move back. I came up behind him, shielding my eyes from the white hot mess of black, crumbling wood and brick. I couldn't see his face, but I didn't have to, to know what he was feeling. Jimmy's not the type to cry. Instead, when I went to stand beside him, his face was entirely emotionless, not as a mask but as a reflection of what Jimmy became without his restaurant—dead.

We each watched mutely as Jimmy's Burgers burned to the ground. We both knew who had started the fire and why, and I was relieved that he didn't feel the need to say it out loud. When the police asked Jimmy if he had any idea who might want to hurt him, he gave the man a surprisingly genuinely innocent expression and declared that, "No, I most certainly do not." The officer moved away, probably searching for a possible witness. Jimmy continued to stare into the inferno, but I doubted he could even see it anymore. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to lay you off, Derek," he said to me, his eyes unblinking and glued to his devastated restaurant as if it would disappear completely if he dared to look away.

Only Jimmy would use the phrase 'lay off' to describe why I was now jobless again, as if, despite the fact that I was responsible for the destruction of his place, firing me would be too discourteous. Then again, it could have been that there was too much fire going around already.

x X x

Eric and I were each trying to rid the world of the other, and, since I was dreaming, I was kicking his ass. The restaurant was aflame as it had been in the waking world, but we danced over the fire as if we were toddler devils and the hellish state of the fighting ring was a familiar aspect of our playground. I swung at the taller man's face for the sixtieth time, but he disintegrated before my fist could find it, blowing through thick ash instead.

I stood for a moment, catching my breath, not thinking to wonder by what source of power my opponent had suddenly been destroyed. The fire continued to crackle around me, but I was numb to it. In fact, my entire body felt suddenly anesthetized, as if every feeling had been sucked away. I considered being frightened by such a dead sensation, but it was such a relief, I basked in it, smiling, laughing, realizing nothing was funny, and laughing anyway.

The numbness followed me into wakefulness, but here it was eerie, a discomfort.

Then Danny's voice rang in my ears, carried by an unnatural echo out to the porch where I'd found a couple hour's sleep. For a second, and only that, my entire body tensed with enthusiastic anticipation to see my brother again—that Danny was sitting just inside, and if I could only—but he wasn't, and he would never be again.

I stumbled into the living room blindly, rubbing the remnants of unconsciousness out of my eyes. Once I could see, I assessed the situation. Davina was sitting Indian style in an old chair that looked unexplainably comfortable after dozing against the outside of the house with nothing but straight cement to sit on. She was trying to be stealthy about wiping away her tears, but the red blotches dotting her face gave her away. I pretended not to notice and turned to the television. Danny's face dominated the shot as Seth's voice prompted my brother from behind the camera.

"I hate the fact that it's cool to be black these days. I hate this hip-pop fucking influence on white-fucking suburbia, and I hate Tabitha Soren and all the Zionist MTV fucking pigs telling us we should get along. Save the rhetorical bullshit Hilary Rodham Clinton cus it ain't gonna fucking happen." Davina paused the video there—Danny's eyes were hidden as he looked down at the table, cigarette hanging frozen in the air, a smile just discernable on the corners of his mouth.

I sat down on the floor, resting my back on the chair my sister was sitting in and gestured to the television. "How'd you get your hands on this?"

A large envelope fell into my lap, and I picked it up, scanning each blank, white side as if a return address would suddenly appear. "What, are we supposed to put lemon juice on it or something?" I asked sarcastically. Davina laughed once without humor. The anonymity was useless—both my sister and I had been there when Seth had recorded the tape, so the possibility that someone other than the D.O.C. had dropped it into the mailbox was not a possibility at all.

The tape was probably meant to get under my skin, but honestly, it was good to see Danny again. The photographs my mother clutches in blue-streaked hands as if they're her life's sustenance are all liars. Danny hadn't been that kid smiling from behind a mess of long hair that Doris stares at day in and day out for a long time. But then again, the tape was lying too. No one but I would know the silent pact my brother and I had made to turn our lives and those of our family members right-side-up again.

I could use your help, Dan, cus I'm doing a shitty job of it by myself.

"Do you remember that day at the beach?" Davina asked. "Danny couldn't have been older than three, and he was so astounded by everything—the sand, the water, the clouds even." She paused, and the chair stirred as she wiped the tears from her face. I remembered. "And I was too afraid of the loch ness monster to get within thirty feet of the water."

"You were five."

"I know, but that's something I'll never be able to get back! I always told myself the next time we'd go to the beach, I'd play with my brothers, but we only went back once, and we had to leave as soon as we got there because dad got a call, and Dan—." I reached for my sister's hand, and she gave it to me without hesitating, her sobs discontinuing her rant about things she could not change. I squeezed her hand in a comforting gesture and realized that it was an easy movement—easy as breathing.

Okay, maybe I'm not doing as poorly as I'd thought.

x X x

I needed to figure out what to do next, and that was impossible when Erica returned from the grocery store and Lindy returned with some chubby guy who was going to give us an estimate for the windows. I needed room to think, and the house had been cramped enough before the somewhat larger addition. I left the house and shortly thereafter, realized I had no other place to go.

I paced up and down the block, circling it once, twice, thrice before moving onto the next one. I found myself shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, the air around my fingertips too heavy, only to find that the cotton lined denim was too restrictive. Somewhere in my cycle of the next block, I got the prickling feeling down my spine, the one that alerts the possessor of being followed. I only tensed up until I heard the familiar click of high heels, at which time I smirked and turned around.

Elizabeth, who had been tailing me by a good twenty feet, stopped dead, looking embarrassed. She fidgeted, pulling at the buttons on her jacket, no doubt debating whether or not to turn and run away, pretend she'd never met Derek Vinyard, drive back to New York, and stay there. She mouthed a curse to herself after awhile and straightened her skirt before closing the distance between us.

"Are you following me?" I asked her playfully, trying to relieve the smallest fraction of the building tension.

"No. Well, yes, but—," she broke off, looking flustered with herself to have stumbled over her words. "I saw you leave your sister's, and I've been trying to figure out what to say." She looked down, her cheeks turning a peach color that used to be adorable.

I didn't know what to say anymore than she did. There were no words. She had played me, manipulated me for the sake of her career… but I'd let her, ignoring any suspicions I'd had, rationalizing until I'd thought that I might actually love her. We were both at fault, but neither of us could be blamed.

I didn't want to be angry with her anymore. I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to blame. I just wanted to understand. But such a feat wasn't possible—I didn't know her any more than I knew the man who was going to fix Davina's windows.

I'd once convinced myself that I loved Beni—_Elizabeth_ was a stranger.

x X x

She walked me home, or, rather, she walked beside me while I walked back to Davina's. It was a surprisingly comfortable walk considering no words—or even glances—were exchanged. That is, it was comfortable until we arrived back at the house just in time to watch the ambulance drive away.

x X x

I walked into the hospital with every intention to find out what the hell was going on, why the windows were now the least of the destruction at Davina's house, and why, when Elizabeth and I had arrived, the place had been empty. We went in via the Emergency Department, where Lindy was speaking with Officer Ward, the second of the two-man ambush Sweeney had pulled in the coffee shop the morning that Danny had been shot. Lindy and Ward both turned to stare at me, the officer's face painted with a look that warned me not to do anything I was going to regret. Now, why would I want to do something like that? My heart went cold.

Where was Davina?

x X x

_Lindy _

I recited Officer Ward's instructions in my head as I stepped towards Derek, walking so slowly, it felt like slow motion. _Tell him about Erica first. That she'd taken a pretty nasty blow to the head but wasn't awake yet. That she could use some support. That they'd find his sister. That the cops would handle it._ But I knew something the police didn't, something I'd purposefully withheld. I held it now, my fingertips wrapping a death grip around it as I pulled it out of my sweatshirt pocket—a small piece of paper, a note—a note for him. I hadn't read it. I didn't want to know what it said. But Derek would, and if I had to choose to keep my loyalties to him or to throw Davina's luck in with the police department, then I was sure as hell going to get this ball of paper into his pocket without Ward ever knowing it existed. Because I was quite sure the piece of paper told Derek where he could find the first of his two remaining siblings. I was quite sure that Derek would do what the police wouldn't dare to allow—anything—to get my best friend back.

I was quite sure he was going to do something stupid.

I was quite sure that I didn't care.

x X x

_Derek_

When Lindy first hugged me, I was shocked, sure she had finally given up on writing my name in the margins of her biology notes and sneaking suggestive glances my way when she thought I wasn't looking. Then I felt her hand slip into the pocket of my jacket, noticed the tears threatening to leak from her eyes when she pulled away. She noticed Elizabeth, and her eyes lit up, not with happiness, but with inspiration. She cleared her throat. "Derek, do you want to walk your friend to her car before we go see Erica?" she asked a bit too loudly—loud enough, I realized, that Ward could just overhear. I searched Lindy's face, finding an intense desperation written across it.

"Sure," I replied, doing my best to seem sincere. "I'll be right back." I took Elizabeth's hand—she had remained silent through the entire exchange, and it was the first time I was thankful that she a damn perceptive woman, that she was a reporter. We walked normally through the doors and were out of sight of Officer Ward before I broke into a run, dragging Elizabeth with me as I headed for her Buick, simultaneously reaching into my pocket in search of whatever Lindy had put here. I pulled out a ball of paper and unfolded it impatiently, tearing a corner in my hurry.

"What the hell is going on?" Elizabeth demanded while she dug in her oversized purse for her keys. So much for staying quiet.

I ignored her for the moment, too caught up in the small letter addressed to me in black ink—dirty with blood.

x X x

_Elizabeth_

There are many things in this world that I can tolerate, but being ignored is not one of them. I glared at Derek's back, finally feeling the cool metal of my keys and wrenching them out of my purse with enough urgency to send a few neglected receipts fluttering to the ground. I didn't have time to gather them, however, since Derek chose that moment to snag the keys right out of my hand and sprint to the driver's side of my vehicle. "Derek!" I shouted, but he seemed to scarcely hear me. What could I do? So, I got in the car.

I barely had opportunity to close the passenger door before Derek floored it, racing through a stop sign at the entrance of the hospital and coming three inches from burying my car's trunk into the front of the Trans-Am he cut off in the process. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was heading towards the boardwalk, and I squared my shoulders. "Derek, if you don't tell me what's happening, I'm going to have to cause a very high-speed wreck involving my own car!" He glanced at me briefly before purposefully sailing through a red light and taking a corner so fast, I swear we were on two wheels.

I was tempted to scream before he threw a piece of paper, stained pink and red in some places, in my face. I snatched it from the air with frustration. "What is this?" I asked, knowing that he was too busy trying to get us killed to answer me. I could barely read the sloppy handwriting, and it took me a moment to make sense of it.

_Vinyard,_

_Let's make a trade._

_Basketball Court._

_Two-thirty._

_P.S. Davina says hi._

I looked at the clock on the dash. It read 2:23. I moved my attention back to Derek, a million questions fighting for center stage in my head. Who had his sister? The D.O.C.? Let's make a trade? I cleared my throat, which was abruptly too dry. "What do they want?" I asked, fearing I already knew the answer. He glanced at me again, and this time, I saw his rage—the fire gleaming in his eyes, the determined clench of his jaw, his milk-white knuckles as his hands strangled the steering wheel.

"Me."

x X x

When we got to the basketball court, Derek seemed more composed. It frightened me more than anything I'd ever seen. More than when he had shoved me in my office. More than when Cameron Alexander had walked into Jimmy's Burgers. More than the idea of what must have happened to Davina. This composure wasn't calm—it was the farthest from it a person could possible get; his jaw had slackened until his mouth hung slightly ajar, as if breathing through his nose no longer provided enough oxygen. His hands were relaxed, hanging limply at his sides. When he told me to stay in the car or he'd shoot me, his voice was clear and steady. When he climbed out of my Buick, his pace was tranquil, as if he had all the time in the world. His demeanor was that of someone at peace.

His eyes burned with the flames of Hell.

I got out of the car and made to follow Derek, but he looked back at me with a silent plea to stay where I was, so I did, halfway around the front of the car, watching as he approached Stacey Fairchild and Seth Ryan, who were standing side by side about fifteen feet away. The boardwalk was all but deserted, with only a couple of other vehicles even around, one of which was a black van parked just behind the two of them. Derek stopped just out of arms reach of either of them, and Stacey smiled, winking in my direction. "Hey, baby," she remarked to Derek. "I haven't seen you in awhile. How's the family?" It was obvious that she was baiting him, but Derek didn't move except that his hand edged ever so slightly towards his back.

"They're doing a lot better than you will be in a second," he said. The entire movement took no more than a second to take place; Derek's right hand reached around his back and pulled a pistol from his waistband while the left grabbed Stacey by the shirt collar, dragging the woman away from Seth just before the gun was placed to her temple. Seth took a step forwards at the same time that I did.

Derek pushed the gun more forcefully into Stacey's temple until she winced, and Seth froze. "Come on, Derek, you don't wanna do that."

"Where's my sister?"

Seth tried again, his own hand moving towards his waist. "Why don't you let Stacey go? You know what they say about killing the messenger."

"Unless you want the messenger to develop another hole to breathe out of, I wouldn't go for that gun just yet." Seth froze again, starting to look panicked.

"Bloody hell, just let the bitch go already!" Stacey screamed, her eyes locked sideways, starring at the deadly weapon holding her captive.

There was a second's pause before the door of the van slid open and Davina was pushed out. She fell onto to pavement, and when she raised up, my hand shot to cover my mouth as if doing so might erase what I was seeing. Her face was bruised and swollen, and she was clad in a long nightshirt that was torn and soaked with red and yellow stains. Neither of these aspects of her appearance was as disturbing as the trails of blood that lined her thighs, running racing stripes down her legs to her feet, which left small pools of blood when she took a few stumbling steps towards her brother. He wasn't even looking at her. Seth had drawn his own pistol, and Derek was starring it in the face.

When Davina fell again, I abandoned my post to help her up. Derek, Seth, and whoever was in the van all ignored me while I wrapped Davina in my jacket and towed the mutilated woman towards the car. We were the other parties in this war, and we weren't needed any longer. I helped Davina into the back on my car and turned around just in time to watch Derek hand his gun to Stacey. Seth took that chance to swing his own into the back of Derek's head. I screamed as he fell, taking a few hasty steps towards the van. "Derek!" Two gunshots rang out and I shrieked, throwing my hands over my head. When I looked up, Seth and Eric Bane were throwing their unconscious prize into the back of the van, and both of my back tires were useless.

Author's Note: Hey, look at me! My twin sister, who is a fantastic little graphic artist, decided to do a title page for this fanfic. It's pretty awesome. I'm going to post a link to it on my profile, so check it out!


	11. A Heart for a Meal

A Heart for a Meal

Author's Note: *shuffles in with head down in shame* Do you guys realize that I started this thing like over two years ago? I noticed that yesterday and felt like a total asshole, so I quick finished this chapter so's I could give you guys something to read! I'm so sorry for the delay! I hope that some of you are still interested enough to finish reading the story if I ever manage to finish writing it. I also realized today that at one point I was bitching to you guys during my junior year of high school about how everyone wanted me to do this and that, and now I'm halfway through my first semester of college… it's crazy! Anyway, again, I'm sorry for making you guys wait so long btwn chapters! I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm very proud of it! If it seems like a conclusion, that's because it is. There will be two chapters following this one, one short expression of creative freedom and an epilogue. Both these chapters will be updated at the same time if I ever manage to get them written up. For those of you disappointed that this story will soon be ending, rest assured, I have every intention of writing a sequel. Bwahaha! Also, I do hope that you will look up the English translation to Pascal's quote. I used the French because I couldn't find a translation that everyone seemed to agree on, but it's a beautiful quote.

"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point."

- Blaise Pascal

_Elizabeth_

The only contact Davina Vinyard and I had ever had included awkward small talk about the best smelling hair products and the joys of being a college student, though the latter had been more of a charade on my part. We were far from friends or ever becoming friends, and the young woman wouldn't let go of my hand. The EMT's practically had to treat the two of us like conjoined twins, accepting that, dammit, I'm just going to be in the way, deal with it or let the pretty blonde die of humiliation and raw, unbridled pain. I clung to her hand with as much fervor as she clung to mine… but I'd be lying if I reported that I didn't want to chop the bitch's arm off and drag it with me to find her missing brother.

The longer it took for the paramedics to assess the multitude of her injuries, for the doctors of decide that separating me from my newfound best friend wasn't worth the effort, for the police to gather our statements—it was all time wasted, time for the black van, the plate number for which I'd failed to retrieve, to disappear over the horizon like in the ending to some classic western film, only exclusively less satisfying.

Regardless of these frustrations, in truth, I'd have remained at her side even if Davina had released her death grip on my fingers. I couldn't leave her alone. Not now. Not after what she'd just been through. Abandoning her would only make me hate myself more than I was already beginning to… but damn it if the thought of losing Derek almost made it seem worth it.

x X x

_Derek_

Steel-toed boots are less fun when you aren't the one wearing them, a fact that was repeatedly beaten into the back of my skull, the surprisingly brittle bones of my ribcage, my kidneys, and, eventually, my face. I wasn't sure where I was. It looked like a living room, but the house was unfamiliar, and the only furniture was a folded-up card table in the corner and a crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. The floors were hardwood, expensive, tasteful, and shortly after I was rather rudely awoken with a boot to the gut, stained red and pink with my blood.

I didn't fight back. It seemed useless, and with a dozen or so against one, it probably was. I only cried out once, when a particularly heavy heel smashed my left hand into the ruined floor, my knuckles grinding into the hardwood, bones whose names I'd once had memorized shattering like the vulnerable reflective surface of a bathroom mirror.

Just wait. Just wait.

x X x

_Erica_

I woke up with the migraine from Hell, and I complained about it. I bitched and moaned until the doctors shot me up with so much morphine, I couldn't tell which way was up and which way was sideways. Lindy paced up and down my small room, fidgeting with the curtain and the TV remote and the lights until I thought she'd probably touched every surface in the whole place. She left once and returned with a coke. I'd always preferred diet, and I'd felt the need to tell her so.

It didn't matter in the end—the carbonated beverage, sugar-content and all, spent the last moments of its pre-mopped life soaking into the tiles beneath my bed, racing circles around its former prison, an aluminum can, dropped from the hand of a silent and unresponsive Lindy, who was still managing to clutch her phone to her ear. I thought I might have heard Davina's name, but my morphine-riddled head could only obsess over the coke, not diet, spreading across the floor.

x X x

_Ally_

By teddy bear's name used to be Teddy, but I changed it to Boots when one of his legs fell off. I took him to school once, and we played on the slide and the swings. Nobody liked Boots because he wasn't soft like new teddy bears were, but that's why I liked him. He used to be Davina's teddy bear, and he was soft when she got him. I asked Davina why he wasn't soft anymore, and she told me that it was because he was loved.

x X x

_Doris_

My husband was dead. My youngest son had joined him while my eldest was missing, last seen being hauled into the back of a van. My eldest daughter was lying in a hospital bed after a brutal rape, and my youngest was sitting on the couch at my feet talking to a one-legged teddy bear. I needed a smoke—no, a pack of smokes, damn my lungs to reach Hell sometime before I would. Stronger than my desire for nicotine was my desire to get the fuck off of this couch, for these gangly, spindly, useless things beneath my pelvis to stand up, support my weight, and take me to my children, all of them, all at once, impossible as it was, but my overly sensitive excuse for a boyfriend insisted on talking me out of trying.

I knew my legs wouldn't hold me; they hadn't done so in weeks. My cough was constant, my breathing labored and moist; getting to the hospital would probably be the last thing I ever did; Murray knew it, and the selfish bastard just wouldn't let me die in peace. "Doris," he said with that teachery voice that once seemed endearing and now made me want to strangle him with his own necktie, "you're not strong enough to make it to the hospital! The doctor said Davina was stable. She doesn't need you to end up in the bed next door."

"Freddy, sweety," I said through an abused throat, fighting the urge to dry heave, my elbows threatening to buckle as I lifted myself from my lying position, "if you don't pick me up off of this couch and get me to the hospital in the next twenty minutes, I will tie you to a cross and set it on fire myself."

x X x

_Lamont_

I ain't no babysitter, a'ight, and if I hadn't ended up with this job, my ass sure as Hell would not be sitting on Deja's floor across from a five year old with a naked Barbie doll in one hand and a dress small enough to fit on my thumb in the other. Derek's mother must have been desperate if she needed a man she's never met and only knew because he'd been prison pals with her son to watch Ally, and that made me nervous as shit, you know what I'm sayin'? I'd already tried calling D at Davina's house, but there'd been no answer. Where the fuck was everyone, and why was Ally not invited? More importantly, why wasn't I invited?

The phone rang, and I sprang to my feet, thanking whoever was calling for staging my rescue from the terror of brushing the hair of another disproportionate toy. I wouldn't be thanking her for long. It was Elizabeth, personally nicknamed "ElizaBitch." She didn't have anything nice to say. I wished she hadn't called. D, you crazy ass peckerwood….

Where are you?

x X x

_Jimmy_

I'd known all along that by hiring Derek Vinyard, I wouldn't be hiring the man but the past of the man, just like I'd known as soon as it was missing who had run off with the gun I kept in my office, but somehow I'd failed to foresee that such a past would be so goddamned flammable. The restaurant was in shambles, but I'd seen that look in Derek's eyes that day. His life was in shambles. A building can be rebuilt—God knows it probably needed the remodel anyhow, but a man's life… that was harder. Wood and concrete can't mend a man's soul, his heart, can't put his mind at ease, can't sit him down and tell him it's going to be alright. Only a man can do that for himself, with whatever tools he deemed necessary. I suppose Derek thought my gun would be necessary. Part of me hopes that he wasn't right. Part of me hopes that he was.

x X x

_Derek_

Shaving off my hair might have seemed poetic from the other side, but my bound hands, one of which was turning colors that seemed dangerously unnatural, swollen eye, and aching everything else were inclined to disagree. What was more poetic was when they were finished, rubbing my head like a father would a son, trading insults and stories I was more or less not listening to. What was more poetic was when Seth knelt before me and bragged intimate details about Davina that a brother should never know about his sister. What was more poetic was how my calm resolve broke for that single instant, promising the fat motherfucker that the foot of death would soon rest upon his throat in a way that was far less elegant and far more satisfying. What was more poetic was when he swung an impressive punch into my jaw and was rewarded with a bloody molar in the eye.

Just wait. Just wait.

x X x

_Davina_

It wasn't the first's asshole's face I couldn't get out of my head. It wasn't the second's. It wasn't the third's.

It was Derek's.

I wished I could open my eyes, that my body hadn't completely shut down on me, because with darkness as the only backdrop, the scene was too clear in my mind. Seth's gun. Derek's booted feet, limp, unmoving. Stacy's sneering expression. The back of a black van as it disappeared into the daylight, stealing my big brother away from me… just when I needed him the most.

Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all. Kill 'em, Der.

Kill them all.

x X x

_Derek_

I guessed early on that Cameron had probably given up on re-recruiting me into the ranks of the organization that I'd helped him to create. His pathetic attempt at the party all those months ago had been met with resistance in the form of a decent kick to the face, so he was on to Plan B—eliminate the betrayer. Cam knew that I could take his entire operation apart if I wanted to. I wasn't surprised when another blow to the back of the head sent me swimming back into the darkness of dreamless sleep.

Just wait.

x X x

_Sweeney_

When Derek suggested that he should go as far away from his family as he could, I'd told him that that wasn't good enough. That, if he wanted my help, he'd have to do better than that. That running wasn't enough. Maybe I should have let him run…

At least then… I might've know where he was… and what he was about to do.

_Derek_

I came to in an office that was both foreign and frighteningly similar to its sister in Venice Beach. The Nazi flag behind the desk I was parked in front of told me right off that I was still a prisoner of war, property of the D.O.C., though the fact the Cameron was seated behind the desk probably could have told me that anyway. Before I could fully wake up and process the entire situation, though, my head was being wrenched backwards, my assailant clutching at my forehead like it was a softball (he was probably mad now that he couldn't just grab me by the hair), and the barrel of a gun was pressed beneath my chin. "Rise and shine, you fucking Judas." I glared at Seth as best I could considering the current angle of my head and the fact that we were sitting side-by-side in stiff, wooden chairs.

Someone chuckled from the seat on the other side of me, and my fists clenched before I could stop them. "Isn't he cute when he's being defiant?" Eric mused, his breath getting just a little too close to my ear.

"That's enough, boys," Cameron said softly, as if bored, and Seth's death grip on my head was released, though his gun remained poised to blow my brains onto the ceiling should he feel the inclination. "Bane?" Cameron addressed the man at my left, and he stood without a word, leaving the room. Cameron leaned back in the chair and folded his arms over his belly. "You know, Derek, I first wrote to Bane as a favor to you. Thought if I could invite him to Venice Beach, the two of us could make an example out of him as to what happens to those that betray their own… of course, that was before I realized who the real traitor was."

I ignored his comments as if he hadn't spoken. I wasn't interested in his rhetoric and his motivations. "What do you want, Cam?" I asked informally, glaring with my good eye. "You've been trying very hard to get my attention lately." I put my hands up as if to show that I was unarmed, though my left hand was useless anyway, and Seth flinched, pulling his weapon from where it was to point it at my temple. "You've got me. If you wanted me dead, I'd be dead."

"On the contrary, Vinyard, I very much want you dead-."

"Then do it!" I cut him off, standing up with more effort than I had expected, my chair clattering onto its back behind me. Seth followed me to my standing position, gun still poised, cocked to the side like he was a genuine gangster. I turned my body to face his and took a slight step forward. "Do it!" I raised my arms out as if ready to be crucified. Seth's face flashed with excitement, but Cameron's own demand stopped him from doing something he'd wanted to do since the party that officially changed my alliance.

"Derek, I'm not finished with you!" Cameron bellowed. He was still sitting, his finger raised as if he still had any sort of authority in my life.

"Come on, Cam, this fucking nigger-lover is-." Seth was looking at Cameron when I moved for his gun. It was as easy and familiar as it had been the last time I'd relieved the fat piece of shit of his weapon. He fell to his knees as he had also done that night, holding his hand, unconsciously mimicking the movements he'd made at another time, at another place.

"Now, Derek, don't be hasty about this…," Cameron muttered, slowly rising from his chair. I slammed a knee into Seth's face before I rounded on the man who had so long ago replaced an absent father.

"Sit the fuck down!" I demanded, and he listened, choking on whatever words he was trying to muster that he thought could potentially save his life, though no words would suffice at this point. He tried to offer me once last cocky smile, but that disappeared when I walked measuredly around the desk and shoved the pistol into his mouth.

"Do you remember when I told you what would happen if you came near my family again?" Cameron's breathing picked up around the barrel of the gun, and I bent over until I could look into his eyes. "That I'd feed you your heart?" He nodded, his teeth catching metal. I straightened up, cocked up an eyebrow, shrugged my shoulders. "I lied."

I readjusted my grip on the gun, pulled back the hammer, and fed him a bullet instead.


End file.
